ReadWriteWeb

Slideshare made an announcement this morning that is sure to thrill open Web standards advocates and iOS gadget lovers alike. The document and presentation-sharing site has done away with Flash completely and now uses HTML5 for its file embeds.

Not only will millions of SlideShare uploads embedded across the Web now render effortlessly on iPhones and iPads, but the company also launched a new mobile site that renders nicely on smartphones and tablets as well. The upgrade should also make the site and its embeds load faster, since they don't rely on clunky Flash plugins and content to render.

For startups and small businesses operating online, one of the biggest headaches can be setting up the ability to accept payments from one's Website.

The latest attempt at relieving this pain point is PintPay, a Web app created by former Scribd developer James Yu, who also authored a JavaScript API for Gmail called Gmailr.

PDFs, love them or hate them, are here to stay as a rich document presentation medium and with the introduction of online services like Scribd, Docstock, even Slideshare and Issuu - static files are getting quite interesting.

Scribd this morning posted a series of year-end Top 10 lists, offering a good view of some of the most interesting and widely-read primary documents on the web this year. As dry stuff goes, this is really interesting. We've embedded those lists below. Keep in mind the company's recent partnership with rich-media lookup service Apture and these docs become not just popular, but also full of multimedia on demand. How many of these hot docs have you read this year?

Document-sharing site Scribd has launched a new feature - Scribd Stats - that will allow users to get detailed analytics about docs uploaded to the site. The feature will be available for free on any piece of content on Scribd.

"It's like Google Analytics for your documents," according to Scribd. And indeed, Scribd Stats provides a similar set of tools. The analytics include an overview of all the documents you've uploaded, as well as the ability to drill down into information about individual items.

The Portable Document Format, or .PDF, sometimes feels silly these days - doesn't it? Sure, they are often pretty - but they feel so static and inflexible. No more! With the new integration of contextual search tool Apture, HTML5-powered PDF viewing and sharing community Scribd now offers a radically new way to read PDFs.

Above, you can see an image of my screen while reading a PDF titled The Internet of things: Networked objects and smart devices. I highlighted the name of a company quoted in the report and with two quick clicks I was watching a YouTube video of a product demo. I highlighted an expert's name and was able to learn all about their career and find them on Twitter - without leaving the page.

Facebook is continuing to expand its instant personalization feature today, with the addition of social reading and publishing site Scribd. Just over a week ago, Facebook added Rotten Tomatoes to the list of sites where its users would be automatically opted-in to sharing content with each other - the first addition since the introduction of the controversial feature last Spring.

This SAP story is getting a bit more interesting. Today we sat in in on a call with its team over at StreamWork, the new collaboration, SaaS service, previously known as 12Sprints.

Dave Meyer lead the discussion. For the first time, at least for us, he helped crystalize how SAP will extend its relevancy. Meyer and his team were joined by StreamWork partners -- a curious mix of companies that include Scribd, Evernote and Box.net, not exactly the trio you'd expect to show up as partners with SAP.

Just when you thought the Obama lovefest was dwindling, Photographer Rick Smolan released his latest book, The Obama Time Capsule. The book includes photography, maps and election results from President Obama's road to the White House. What makes this project unique is that Smolan offers readers a chance to upload their own photographs and personalize their copies.

Social publisher Scribd and CBS-owned megapublisher of "real" books Simon & Schuster have just announced an agreement to sell Simon & Schuster eBooks in the Scribd Store.

The Scirbd store itself just launched last month. About 5,000 Simon & Schuster titles will be available through the Scribd store. Those titles will then be readable on Scribd.com, computer desktops, and various mobile devices. Simon & Schuster will also make thousands of printed titles available for preview with links to purchase from other outlets.

Online self-publishing firm Lulu and social document sharing site Scribd have just announced a partnership in which Lulu will begin using Scribd's iPaper viewer to display Lulu's free e-books online at the lulu.com web site. In addition to making it easier for users to gain access to these free publications, Lulu will also be using Scribd's unique feature that allows for displaying AdSense within iPapers to monetize the free content being provided by the e-books' publishers.