Comments on: Keep an Eye on Shelfari

By: doubtingben » Blog Archive » Your own virtual library

doubtingben » Blog Archive » Your own virtual library — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 19:09:24 +0000

[...] via: http://www.techcrunch.com/2007.....-shelfari/ [...]

By: Amazon Invests in Shelfari

Amazon Invests in Shelfari — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 06:05:57 +0000

[...] hearing that Amazon has invested $1 million or so in Seattle based Shelfari, beating out at least one venture firm that competed for the [...]

By: nct

nct — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 17:54:31 +0000

Library Thing has one enormous flaw: a newcomer can quite unwittingly make a huge mess of things. I know. I was guilty. I was trying to add my collection of books by a noted author. There was an option to “combine” or “separate”. I clicked on “combine” thinking it would be private, for my own convenience. To my horror, I had combined all of this author’s novels for everyone in the world and somebody had to go to a lot of trouble to unsort things. They should post red flags or warnings.

By: evbart

evbart — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 03:56:47 +0000

This is an interesting space, but I don’t think any of these sites are doing it right. I review a bunch of them here, before i had learned about shelfari: http://www.lifeinlists.com/200.....your-media

And I think a lot of them could take a cue from Last.fm. I dont want to manually type in all of my books, just so that I can show them off to other people. I want to have them in one location so that I can learn from that list. I want that list to happen automatically (pull from the books i purchase on amazon), I want to be able to search that list, I want recommendations.

If I’m going to give you my data, make sure that its an easy process (last.fm just requires a plugin, and it pulls all my music data automatically, no extra work), and then once you have my data, make sure you give me back useful information for it. More than just being able to show the world my library.

Another example of this type of service is wesabe. It does the same thing for personal financial data. It pulls your data automatically (though it does offer manual uploads), and then it analyzes that data and gives you valuable data back in exchange. The value proposition to the user is clear, the usability is there, and you end up with a solid service that has great potential.

Thanks for the post.

By: david

david — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 09:23:21 +0000

you have some spam in your trackbacks

By: Rachanont » Shelfari

Rachanont » Shelfari — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 17:34:23 +0000

[...] Techchrunch เขียนไว้ FAQs ของ Shelfari [...]

By: marcuswotznika

marcuswotznika — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 12:07:07 +0000

Just want to say that you have a really informative and amazing site.
Really helped me further, much thanks

By: Anna

Anna — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 00:34:03 +0000

The LibraryThing widget also allows you to put your own Amazon ID in the links. Did you do your homework, Michael?

By: sunny

sunny — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 15:06:27 +0000

LibraryThing.com/suggest.php

BookSuggester and UnSuggester.

Once you have some of your own books listed you have the following additional options:

* LibrarySuggester
* People with your books also have: fiction / non-fiction books
* Similarly-tagged books: fiction / non-fiction
* Special-sauce recommendations: fiction / non-fiction
* Most popular books you don’t have: fiction / non-fiction

By: miffyvalley

miffyvalley — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 02:03:39 +0000

i like anobii because it is clean, easy to use, and extremely responsive. in terms of function it seems to me that it’s probably better than shelfari, which looks alarmingly similar to anobii. the ability to list books of different languages and to compare prices from amazon of different countries is very satisfying.

i am not a big programming geek but it seems to me that their programming has a very solid foundation, and as a result user feedback / suggestions have been implemented quickly and continuously. the only problem is that right now they don’t have sufficient traffic to generate a good list of “other books you may like”; but then i don’t see any point in duplicating what amazon is already doing. just my 2 cents!

By: Mike

Mike — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 17:14:03 +0000

Just to add another one in the mix, there is also the UK based booktribes - perhaps they are breeding

By: Rana Basheer

Rana Basheer — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 14:57:20 +0000

GuruLib has been around from May 2006 and has a decent list of users. GuruLib uses a book shelf metaphor to catalog books, research papers, datasheets, music, movies, games and software on the internet. Some important features that other cataloging websites lack but GuruLib supports are
1. You can catalog PDF, DOC, PS, XLS and PPT documents.
2. Track your borrowed books, movies etc.
3. Price tracking feature to let you know through email when the price of a book, movie drops to a value that you set.
4. Access to over 530 public and university library to fetch the cataloging information. If you have a local library in your area and would like to check if some of the books in your collection are available there you can add them to GuruLib.
5. Provides a monetary value of each shelf just for bragging rights or for insurance purpose.
Check out my home library cataloged under coolabcgirl

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 01:00:40 +0000

U-lik has a dreadfully confusing design - next someone will be recommending the equally dreadful Internet Book Database (http://www.ibookdb.net/).

By: leafar

leafar — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 00:25:18 +0000

You could also try U.[lik].
Books + Movies + Games as Listal but with an algorithm that mixes Content Base and Collaborative Filtering and a contribution system that works in one click. Widget are nice especially the one using your library to display video from what you like on your blog.
You can see the demo on my blog.

Happy so see techcrunch interested by this segment.

By: nick99

nick99 — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 21:21:14 +0000

good idea, but I do not think it is going to work

By: Alfred Toh

Alfred Toh — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 16:15:22 +0000

Shelfari is great, its a great example of how one can bootstrap an interesting and promising startup with no VC funding at all to launch.

http://www.bookjetty.com is another site that is doing something similar BUT it adds a very useful feature that looks up the availability of books on your wishlist at your local library. However, BookJetty that is only serving the users from Singapore and provides availability for the Singapore National Library.

By: RP

RP — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 15:53:33 +0000

Chicklit Reviewer is a niche book-loving social network based on the Ning platform.
Interesting play on a book genre that has taken off in the last few years.
In addition, women are some of the highest purchasers online so it will be interesting to see what advertising shows up on the site once it gains traction.

Check it out at :
http://www.chicklitreviewer.com/

By: Jon

Jon — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 15:09:38 +0000

I use aNobii and love it. They are not as big as than LT but much more pleasant to use. Looks like they’ve borrowed some visual techniques from 37signals. There’s been speed problem before but looks like it’s now been solved.

By: Richard

Richard — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 14:59:02 +0000

Ach…please. What exactly is it that makes Shelfari’s design so much better than LibraryThing’s? The fact that they have half the functionality, hence can afford more whitespace? Or the number of huge, bevelled buttons? Or maybe even the rounded corners?

I also don’t really get your point about the 40% owned by ABEbooks…does a company cease to be of interest when there’s no immediate chance of raking in funding or of getting acquired?

By: jlp

jlp — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 14:46:09 +0000

Shelfari is downright ugly!! It looks like a billboard, not a catalogue of books.

Aside from the visual aspect, it’s useless to anyone who has books that the site can’t find. You can add a different edition of a book that they list, but heaven forfend you should have a book they don’t recognize. There appears to be no way to add it. LT, on the other hand, searches dozens of libraries and it’s easy to manually add the rare book not found in a search.

Furthermore, with LibraryThing, I can actually see the publication and other cataloguing data quickly and easily. Shelfari’s “book details” page isn’t designed for this. (I note that you cannot edit the “general details” on that page, which is a big problem if there’s an error or omission.)

By: Morgan

Morgan — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 14:25:08 +0000

This is a pretty interesting area to me, I’ve got a site much like them that I’m launching sometime in the next months, it’s a crowded area.

I think I have included a couple of key features that the others miss, while probably coming up short ’socially’. I’ll be sure to beg for a review in the launch forum. Oh god please.

By: les

les — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 11:35:19 +0000

I’ll agree Librarything may not be aesthectically pleasing as shelfari, but it does have some major downfalls……I reviewed these two recently alongside gurulib…..it’ll show some of the pratfalls of shelfari and tim the owner discusses them in the comments.

http://librarytwopointzero.blo.....rulib.html

By: sunny

sunny — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 09:54:26 +0000

> Shelfari isn’t as big as Library Thing [...], but [...] they have a widget to show off the books you own.

LibraryThing has cover view of any library and blog widgets.

> LibraryThing is such a mess to use

Please tell them where you had difficulties - they are eager to make LT as easy to use as possible!
-> the FAQ thread
-> Recommend Site Improvements
-> Site talk

By: SimonW11

SimonW11 — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 09:41:58 +0000

I trialed Anobii at the same time as LibraryThing, I set up it’s improvement suggestions forum and did not like it for numerous reasons. LT remains the big boy on the block and its features and user comunity continue to improve.

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 09:17:18 +0000

I use aNobii (anobii.com), a very similar site, now with nearly 77,000 books indexed (and counting). The site has increased dramatically since I joined in August-time, and they have added so many features it’s hard to keep up. Try it, I’d like to know which one people prefer, Shelfari or aNobii.