Barack Obama’s campaign has posted a blog post announcing the launch of its official account on Scribd, the online document repository. The page, which can be accessed at http://scribd.com/barackobama, will serve as a resource for documents related to Obama’s policy, along with official statements.

Y Combinator-funded Scribd is a “YouTube for documents” that allows users to upload an array of filetypes that are converted to a Flash format viewable on most computers. The document viewer, called iPaper, can also be embedded in web pages. Since its launch in 2007, Scribd has seen explosive growth, and now claims to see nearly 20 million monthly unique visitors.

Scribd’s inclusion in the Obama campaign isn’t surprising given the candidate’s adoption of web-centric services like Twitter (his official account has over 52,000 followers). In contrast, opposing candidate John McCain has admitted to not being particularity tech savvy, though as we noted in our endorsements for the candidates, his policies will matter far more than what web 2.0 services he’s fond of.

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Docstoc has taken a page out of YouSendIt’s book by releasing a desktop applet for sending documents to others via email without having to worry about size restrictions.

The Windows-only OneClick app enables users to right click on certain file types (Word, PDF, Excel, etc.) and choose to email them via Docstoc. The files will begin uploading to the startup’s servers in the background while an email composition window opens with pre-generated links to them. Recipients simply need to click these links to begin viewing or downloading the files, which can be up to 50mb in size and set as either public or private on Docstoc.

OneClick’s restrictions on file types and sizes mean that it will compete only minimally with more focused online file transfer services. But it does have the advantage of unlimited and indefinite storage, as well as background uploading (there’s no need to wait for uploads to finish before sending your email). At the very least, it’s a clever move to encourage more content contribution to Docstoc. As with Scribd and other UGC destinations, content is king - what else is Google going to index?

See a related announcement by Scribd from just last week that enables onsite previewing of email attachments.

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Scribd is launching iPaper@Scribd today, a new feature that lets users convert outgoing email attachments to the company’s iPaper format. Documents in iPaper can be viewed in any browser that supports Flash, which should mitigate the inevitable headaches associated with getting email attachments to work properly.

The system is remarkably simple: CC ipaper@scribd.com on your outgoing email message, and everyone else on the recipient list will receive links to Scribd-ified versions of the attachments. Scribd currently supports a wide range of document formats, including the dreaded Office 2007 format. Alternatively you can send the attachment to Scribd without CC’ing others - Scribd will send just you the link back and you can then forward it on.

In an exchange for convenience, users will have to deal with a few quirks. Every time you send an attachment using the service, your recipients will receive two messages: the original message with the attachment, and the one that Scribd sends containing a link to the iPaper version. Some people might like having an original copy of the document, but the prospect of getting even more email is a bit of a turn-off. Users can also simply choose to download the original document from Scribd as well.

The document is set to private at Scribd, which means it isn’t included in their directory or indexed by search engines. That still means this is a poor choice for sensitive documents since you are posting them on the Internet. But for less sensitive materials, this sure beats sending around huge attachments by email.

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Scribd, the “YouTube for documents”, has announced that it will be removing all pornographic material from the site beginning May 21.

Here’s the announcement from the site’s blog:

Over the next month, we will be updating Scribd’s Terms of Service to prohibit pornographic documents and images. It’s become clear that adult content is limiting Scribd’s usefulness to educators, parents, students, and publishers - exactly the types of users that benefit the most from our site and services.

Starting today, there will be a one week grace period to allow users with adult content on Scribd to download it to their local computer before it is removed from the website.

So how will this affect the YCombinator startup? The site has seen impressive growth since its launch in March 2007, and now says that it has 17 million monthly visitors. It’s also recently been adding new features including an API and iPaper, a replacement for FlashPaper that allows authors to monetize their documents. But there have been claims (NSFW) that much of Scribd’s traffic is generated by pornographic and pirated material (the “Adult” group is one of the largest and most active on the site).

Should we expect Scribd’s traffic to take a nosedive? Unlikely. Porn may have helped Scribd gain momentum in its infancy, but the site has long since proven its use as a blogging tool and a document repository. If anything, it’s surprising that it took Scribd this long to make the switch.

Other players in this space include edocr and Docstoc (both of which are porn-free).

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Docstoc, the professional document repository and community, has raised $3.25 Million in Series B funding. The round was led by Rustic Canyon Partners, and brings their total funding to over $4 Million.

Docstoc serves as a repository for professional documents, featuring forms, templates, and a variety of other material. Its flash-based viewer can be embedded into other pages, allowing documents to be viewed on external sites without needing an outside reader like Acrobat or Word.

The company is also introducing a Content Partnership Program (CPP) that will allow content providers to place their own ads around their documents, and to collect any revenue they accrue. The program is free of charge, but applicants will be screened for quality. Docstoc CEO Jason Nazar says that the program is designed to improve the amount of high-quality content on the site while establishing ties with valuable partners.

Docstoc raised $750k in Series A funding last November in a round led by Scott Walchek, Brett Brewer, Matt Coffin, Robin Richards, and Crosscut Ventures. Their primary competitor is Scribd, launched March 2007, which features a similar embeddable document viewer and a large collection of content. Scribd has raised over $4 Million to date.

Docstoc Series B Funding Press Release - Get more documents

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Document sharing on the Web via embeddable Flash players keeps getting better all the time. Earlier this month I wrote about Issuu, a Denmark-based startup that does a really good job with image-heavy documents like magazines and photography books. Today, Scribd released a vastly improved upgrade to its document viewer, which it is now calling iPaper. Scribd streams the converted PDF documents to the Flash player, and offers three different ways to view each document: in one long, scrollable window; as a book with page-turning effects, or as a slide show. Check out the book mode in the this document.

Pretty cool, but what’s the business? Scribd allows you to put contextual Google AdSense ads inside each document. Scribd will do a three-way rev share, giving most of its portion of the AdSense dollars to the document uploader. Now all those documents not already on the Web can generate some income.

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