Social Networks

Having social interactions around books is nothing new, but eBooks have brought a new meaning to the social experience of reading. Through social reading platforms, readers can see what their friends are reading, check their progress, see notes and even borrow books virtually.

As we become more connected, reading becomes more of a communal experience. But should it be? In an op-ed piece in The New York Times this week about the down side to the Internet, author Evgeny Morozov questions the Mark Zuckerberg‘s recent statement on Charlie Rose‘s show, “Do you want to go to the movies by yourself or do you want to go to the movies with your friends? You want to go with your friends.”

Pointing out the lowest common denominator factor when choosing films and art as a group, Morozov responds: “Besides, isn’t it obvious that consuming great art alone is qualitatively different from consuming it socially? And why this fear of solitude in the first place?”

What do you think?

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The UK horror and SF publisher Hodder & Stoughton has just launched Hodderscape, their new Facebook group for all things SF. The group was formally announced last weekend at the SFX Weekender in Prestatyn Sands, Wales. According to Oliver Johnson, the associate publisher at Hodder, “Hodderscape represents our commitment to engaging with readers of genre fiction and hearing their voices and sharing with them our enjoyment of all the marvelous new books that Hodder are publishing in the coming months.”

Hodderscape is going to be managed by the Horror and SF editorial staff at Hodder, and it is already up to 89 members.The staff plans to run severl promotions this year, and they’re currently running one right now.

It’s called “Shelf of Glory“. Hodder is looking for the most impressive collection of books, toys, or what have you. Competition is fierce, with some fans reveling themselves to be dedicated collectors of SF memorabilia. But you can still participate by submitting a picture of your bookshelf.

Hodderscape via The Bookseller

Have you ever wondered exactly where in the world an event in a book occurred? BookDrum now has you covered.

BookDrum launched a map feature recently. It’s based on Google Earth (that’s not going to help much with some SF books), and it’s marked with the key locations from 150 books.

It’s a collection of points, not paths, though. There’s a number of entries for the Grapes of Wrath, but no way to place them in order. But this is still a fun feature. I wouldn’t have known where Interview with a Vampire took place or what the street looked like.

This is definitely worth checking out, and so is BookDrum. This is a 2 year old community of book lovers who are working to build a wiki type collection of information about their favorite books. The book profiles include background material such as historical data, character bios, and more.

The online reading community is celebrating an anniversary today; it’s now been up and running for 5 years and has grown to be the largest ebook community on the web.

Wattpad was launched  years ago with a few staff members, only a few dozen community members, and it only saw 60 comments left by readers in a  good month. Now Wattpad has over 7 million visitors a month, with 1.3 registered users participating in the community for about an hour a day, on average. Wattpad continues to grow, with over 250 thousand new original stories posted each month.

Congratulations, Wattpad!

The social network curation site Storify released a number of updates today and they’re going to make it easier to pull together bits and pieces of content from various social networks and create a story form them.

eBooknewser last covered Stroify back in April when it launched a public beta. It was a fun new service that let you build a story out of Tweets, Facebook updates, or content from Youtube, Google, RSS feeds, or even other stories on Storify.

And today it’s getting better. Storify’s email has more detail:

• A new logo and new look. The search and the editor sides of the interface have been switched, and we have made it easier to add text to stories. Photo searches are displayed in gallery format and pictures shown larger in stories. Saving stories is more reliable.
• A revised bookmarklet and all-new Storypad that lets you collect and save media from all over the web, and easily share what you’ve gathered with other Storify users. You can use media from anyone’s Storypad in any story.
• Smoother drag-and-drop functionality, which makes it easier to build stories and reorganize them.
• A collapsed view of your Storify story while it’s being built, so you can see it easily and organize it better.

 

 

Google announced late last week that in the near future you’re going to see a few changes to Google reader. Google plans to add more integration between the 2 services. As one sees features being retired, the other will launch features to replace them.

The thinking behind this change is that Google Reader was never intended to be a social tool; it was a reader. So why not connect it with a better social platform? Google hasn’t listed all the features that are being replaced, but it looks to include all the social features that Google Reader used to have: things like friending, following and shared link blogs.

This is a good move, from the viewpoint of the user. Google never really supported Google Reader, and by integrating the social features with Google+, Google’s flagship service at the moment, users have a better chance of seeing more improvements, tweaks, and other attempts to smooth out the rough edges.

Do you rely on reviews to help pick audiobooks? Good news. Earlier this week Audible launched new revamped review system that enables both more detailed reviews of the audiobooks you listen to as well as easier ways to find reviews you can trust.

Audible will now let you post a 0 to 4 star review on both the story and the presentation (the quality of the narration). After posting the stars, you’re then guided through a series of questions designed to help you post a better review that will contain more information.

You can also create a Listener Profile after posting your first review, and other Audible members can use the profile to track your reviews and follow you on Audible.com. This system isn’t as feature rich as the one Amazon uses on its own website, but it is a pleasant improvement over what Audible had before.

Publishing is going through a shake-up right now as new startups launch with the goal of cutting out the middlemen and reducing the number of people between the author and the reader. Today I found a startup that plans to introduce more middlemen, not remove them.

Interesting, no?

Inkubate is still getting ready to launch, but when it does it’s going to be a forum where authors can meet agents and publishers. It’s going to act as a digital slushpile. Authors can submit a sample of their latest work, and the agents and publishers will be able to search and read the the available samples without having to commit themselves.

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The social news aggregator Taptu has just released a new app. It already had apps avaialble for iOS and Android, and today Taptu announced that it’s app was now available via the Nook App Store.

Taptu for the NookColor has all the great features found on its Android app and is optimised for just this one device. It’s a telling sign of how popular the NookColor is as a reading platform.

Readers can visit the Taptu StreamStore and find curated news collections with stories drawn from sources such as Apartment Therapy, BlogHer, The Atlantic Monthly, Time Magazine, and more. They can also build their own collection from RSS feeds and other sources or follow the news  categories Fashion, Food & Drink, and so on. Readers can even import their feeds from Google Reader as well as share what they are reading via Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Facebook is announcing all kinds of new social reading partnerships today, and Kobo is not one to be left out. Kobo will soon expand Kobo Reading Life,one of the industry’s first comprehensive social reading experiences, to include more and better Facebook. The new service will make it easier for readers to feature their reading activities on their Facebook profile as well as engage in conversations with each other while reading.

“Our extremely popular Kobo Reading Life app was the first social platform to deliver interaction to eReading,” said Dan Leibu, chief technology officer, Kobo. “Kobo is committed to staying on the cutting-edge of social eReading to realize our mission of inspiring more people to read by allowing them to share thoughts, insights and experiences.”

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