Good Reads
I have several friends who are avid readers. While I may read a book or two a month (in between my gazillion magazine subscriptions), they tend to read many times more than that, it seems.
So my friend, JP, told me about this social networking site called Good Reads. The point of the site is to share reviews and ratings of the books you’ve read with your friends. Based on what you’ve read, the site will also recommend books that others who’ve read it have also read. (I think it uses Amazon’s recommendation engine for that. The site is an Amazon affiliate and makes some money off presenting links to Amazon for purchases.)
Now, I’m actually pretty tired of the social networking phenomenon in general. May I never join another MySpace/Facebook/Tribe/Bebo clone!!
That being said, I’m okay with joining websites which offer tightly focused communities where social networking isn’t the end all/be all of the offering, but rather enhances the offering. For example, there have been other websites before allowed you to enter the books you’ve read into virtual bookshelves. As a standalone offering, that’s kind of boring. But add the social networking effect where I can see the books my friend JP likes (we have a lot of overlap in the fantasy genre), and it becomes much more compelling.
It’s also fun that the web site offers a “gadget” which can be easily added to your blog so you can share the books you’ve been reading with the world. I just added my Good Reads gadget to this web site. (It’s on the right hand sidebar.) We’ll see how much I like having it there over time, but right now it’s okay.
