The first time I saw Scribd, there certainly seemed to be a cool factor in embedding a PDF in a viewer in a web page, much like placing a YouTube video on my site.

But more recently, I've come to realize how the use of Scribd and SlideShare may be more of a usability nuisance than it is worth. For instance, a few weeks ago, I was viewing the C&W Program (Final) program prior to the conference, and decided to download a copy for viewing offline on my netbook. First, I tried the download link at the top of the Scribd viewer frame, which took me here. Logging in seems a pain, so I used the Computers and Writing 2010 Program link (above the Scribd version of the document), which took me to another view of the document at the Scribd website. It was counter intuitive to do so (one would expect the same behavior), but I tried the download link there and it worked: downloading without logging in.