Commercial production of cumene is by 

Friedel–Crafts alkylation of benzene with propylene.
Cumene producers account for approximately 20% of the global demand for benzene. [5] The
original route for manufacturing of cumene was by alkylation of benzene in the liquid phase using
sulfuric acid as a catalyst, but because of the complicated neutralization and recycling steps
required, together with corrosion problems, this process has been largely replaced. As an
alternative, solid phosphoric acid (SPA) supported on alumina was used as the catalyst.

reporting system was discontinued on February 6, 2018, in favor of a system of "constantly

rotating catalogs of ebooks and audiobooks" that provided "an unlimited number of books and
audiobooks, alongside unlimited access to news, magazines, documents, and sheet music" [30] for
a monthly subscription fee of US$8.99.[31] However, under this unlimited service, Scribd would
occasionally "limit the titles that you’re able to access within a specific content library in a 30-day
period."[32]
In October 2018, Scribd announced a joint subscription to Scribd and The New York Times for
$12.99 per month.

Audiobooks[edit]
In November 2014, Scribd added audiobooks to its subscription library.[33] Wired noted that this
was the first subscription service to offer unlimited access to audiobooks, and "it represents a
much larger shift in the way digital content is consumed over the net." [34] In April 2015, the
company expanded its audiobook catalog in a deal with Penguin Random House.[35] This added
9,000 audiobooks to its platform including titles from authors like Lena Dunham, John
Grisham, Gillian Flynn, and George R.R. Martin.[36]

Comics[edit]
In February 2015, Scribd introduced comics to its subscription service.[37] The company added
10,000 comics and graphic novels from publishers including Marvel, Archie, Boom!
Studios, Dynamite, IDW, and Valiant.[28] These included series such as Guardians of the
Galaxy, Daredevil, X-O Manowar, and The Avengers.[38][39] However, in December 2016, comics
were eliminated from the service due to low demand.

Timeline[edit]
In February 2010, Scribd unveiled its first mobile plans for e-readers and smartphones.[40] In April
2010 Scribd launched a new feature called "Readcast", [41] which allows automatic sharing of
documents on Facebook and Twitter.[42] Also in April 2010, Scribd announced its integration of
Facebook social plug-ins at the Facebook f8 Developer Conference.[43]
Scribd rolled out a redesign on September 13, 2010, to become, according to TechCrunch, "the
social network for reading".[44]
In October 2013, Scribd launched its e-book subscription service, allowing readers to pay a flat
monthly fee in exchange for unlimited access to all of Scribd's book titles. [45]
In August 2020, Scribd announced its acquisition of the LinkedIn-owned SlideShare for an
undisclosed amount. [46]

Financials[edit]
The company was initially funded with US$120,000 from Y Combinator in 2006, and received
over US$3.7 million in June 2007 from Redpoint Ventures and The Kinsey Hills Group. [47] In
December 2008, the company raised US$9 million in a second round of funding led by Charles
River Ventures with re-investment from Redpoint Ventures and Kinsey Hills Group. [48] David O.
Sacks, former PayPal COO and founder of Yammer and Geni, joined Scribd's board of directors
in January 2010.[49]
In January 2011, Scribd raised an additional US$13 million in a round led by MLC Investments of
Australia and SVB Capital.[50] In January 2015, the company raised US$22 million in new funding
from Khosla Ventures with partner Keith Rabois joining the Scribd board of directors.[51]
In 2019, Scribd raised $58 million in new funding led by growth firm Spectrum Equity. [52]

Technology[edit]
In July 2008, Scribd began using iPaper, a rich document format similar to PDF and built for the
web, which allows users to embed documents into a web page. [53] iPaper was built with Adobe
Flash, allowing it to be viewed the same across different operating systems (Windows, Mac OS,
and Linux) without conversion, as long as the reader has Flash installed (although Scribd has
announced non-Flash support for the iPhone).[54] All major document types can be formatted into
iPaper including Word docs, PowerPoint presentations,
PDFs, OpenDocument documents, OpenOffice.org XML documents, and PostScript files.
All iPaper documents are hosted on Scribd. Scribd allows published documents to either be
private or open to the larger Scribd community. The iPaper document viewer is also embeddable
in any website or blog, making it simple to embed documents in their original layout regardless of
file format. Scribd iPaper required Flash cookies to be enabled, which is the default setting in
Flash.[55]
On May 5, 2010, Scribd announced that they would be converting the entire site to HTML5 at
the Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco.[56] TechCrunch reported that Scribd is migrating away
from Flash to HTML5. "Scribd co-founder and chief technology officer Jared Friedman tells me:
'We are scrapping three years of Flash development and betting the company on HTML5
because we believe HTML5 is a dramatically better reading experience than Flash. Now any
document can become a Web page.'" [57][58]
Scribd has its own API to integrate external/third-party applications, [59] but is no longer offering
new API accounts.[60]
Since 2010, Scribd has been available on mobile phones and e-readers, in addition to personal
computers. As of December 2013, Scribd became available on app stores and various mobile
devices.[citation needed]