Book networks of Runet: user view
The reason for writing this article was the emergence of another service among the book social networks, and the desire to put in order the thoughts on this topic. In general, there are already quite a lot of social networks in RuNet, but they do not cease to appear and find their users. I have tried many, but not all of them were active, and only a few have stayed until now.
My attachments to books and everything-what-around-them make me try and use services directly related to books. Therefore, I am registered in all (known to me at the moment) Russian book social networks.
It so happens that I communicate with all the creators of such services (I am friends with almost all online). I will not say that I somehow strongly participated in the work and development of this or that project, but they consulted me a couple of times. And I'm trying to find the best service for myself. But, perhaps, I will tell everything in order ...
')
In 2006, I met Reader 2 (the project itself appeared in 2005 — it turns out to be the oldest), which allows you to create online lists of read books and look for something new to read. I registered there and even posted a list of 43 books, wrote several reviews. However, something did not work out for us, and I stopped using this service. The most useful in this service is the ability to export the list of read books. Unfortunately, only in text format, but already something.
Then I discovered LiveLib . The project appeared in February 2007, it was then that a first post appeared in their blog telling about the idea of ​​the project, and in March, Anatoly Tikhomirov’s associates opened a network for public testing.
At the moment, on LiveLib , I have the largest list of books I have read. What is good about this list is that it is possible to restore the chronology of reading - what and when. You can evaluate the books, however, with only three values ​​— I recommend, neutral, did not like it — and this is not enough to express the whole possible range of emotions. The service does not stand still, the functionality is added. And now you can add reviews, put a link to the source (it is assumed that it will lead to your personal blog, and not to someone else's thought). From the very beginning, it seems, books could be purchased at Ozon.ru; Now you can try to find an electronic version of the book and add a volume to your wishlist.
LiveLib has, probably, the largest user base and constantly increases it (which is promoted a lot by contests with good prizes). In general, this is, it seems, the only project that has an investor.
It’s rather difficult to judge how many “dead souls”, so-called virtuals, are in the project, but there are a lot of them (even the creators themselves wrote about this). “Live” users can chat in the project forum. As for the blog, then, unfortunately, nobody is doing it now. And LiveLib is currently the only network that offers users to place a widget on their blogs (by the way, in two versions - the first one can be set up directly on the site and copied to your blog, and the second version is implemented as a WordPress plugin).
At the same time, in April 2007, I found the advisory service Imho.net . At that moment, as I recall, it was only possible to evaluate books, but this process did not fascinate me. In total, I was able to evaluate 17 books and added one review, after which I stopped using the service.
At the moment, not only books, but films, performances, TV shows, games, music, radio, architecture and even wine can be assessed on this network ... (It’s like Reader2’s desire to become part of a “global plan to take over the world": it’s associated with projects MyFilmz - a social list of films, MyProgs - a social list of programs, TagFacts - a social knowledge base, Bank of Ideas - a social list of ideas.)
The book project X-Libris stands apart. The project appeared in February 2007 and works on the principle of social news aggregators. The user adds books, their descriptions, reviews, links to electronic versions and everything they deem necessary, and the community already votes “like / dislike” and thus regulates the rating of a particular book. The state seems to be stable - they use the service, but the future prospects are not clear to me. At the very beginning I added four books, after which I stopped using the service.
In December 2007, we (my blog and I) began to cooperate with the My Books service (then it was also called Book Exchange ). This is not exactly a book network; This is a kind of hybrid bookcrossing and bookstore, you can exchange, give away or sell an unnecessary (here are some!) book or buy some rare edition. Alexander Druzhkov does not abandon the service and is constantly working on it, as evidenced by at least a recent review in Internet features .
In June 2008, I met BukRiver - a service that combines the ideas of bookcrossing and the simple exchange of unnecessary books. I do not change books, do not throw them away. I will not say that it is greedy, but I rarely give books to friends. And so my use of the site did not go beyond registration. ( Probably, for the same reason, I do not participate in the movement of bookcrossers. )
In September 2007, I interviewed the guys from the Book network. Konstantin Fedorov (the author of the project) spoke about the imminent launch, but started only in the summer of this year, and so far only in a closed version, since testing and debugging continues. The highlight of the project should be the Open Book, which will be written jointly by all interested users. As far as this "shoot" - time will tell. Unique chips creators also call the Group, where you can communicate in interests, and Collections, where you can make to add yourself various thematic tapes.
Waiting long enough for the launch, and communicating a lot with one of the Book developers in my hands (with Kostya), I got the right to be the first to play around with the service. I immediately realized that I lacked the ability to import my books from other services. The guys went to a meeting and added some books for me. For which they - thank you very much. Still, it would be great to download books with a list or try to “pull” them using RSS from another service, for example, from the same LiveLib, where the list of books can be printed out. And even tags, ratings or reviews with comments are not important - the main thing is just a list of reads; it's so lazy to add books with pens.
In December last year, My Library was launched, the launch of this project was also postponed for a long time by Anatoly Larin . All the same: books, readers, writers, ratings; but here there are already news and various interesting facts from the world of literature that come from various sources - a significant plus for active users. The recommender system based on the principle of collaborative filtering should become the chip of the system (however, I recommend books that are not entirely in my taste, but it seems that for a better match of interests, it is necessary to note and evaluate more books).
My library is distinguished from others by a very convenient interface for adding books and the lack, unfortunately, of the ability to sort books — all books are listed alphabetically. As far as I can tell, this book network is in second place after LiveLib in terms of number of users and attendance. (I do not take IMHO.net into account because it is not a purely book service).
And in September of this year, I learned about another book network - Bookmix . Having become acquainted , I realized that I like the service. Not to say that he is perfect and completely satisfies me, but strives for perfection. And I am ready to switch to it if, as the creators promise, the import function will be implemented ( for some reason, I tend to trust them, because all my requests and wishes of other users were implemented as soon as possible *).
In Bookmix, there is no ranking of read books in time, but there is sorting by various parameters ( and it was done when we, the users, asked for it ). There is no forum here, but there are well-implemented groups. There is a news feed, which is formed by the users themselves. Here everything is in its place - different ratings for books and reviews (you can write “essays” and get user ratings for them; your rating will increase or decrease, like Karma on Habré - everything is in the hands of users). A little pleasure that others do not yet have is the status of the user “I'm reading now ...” **. In general, I can say that now this service makes me happy.
I will note right away that there are still western networks - GoodReads and Shelfari . But they will remain outside the scope of this article, because I, although registered there, absolutely did not use them. Both services have the ability to import either from a prepared file; for example, GoodReads supports xls, csv and txt formats ( Shelfari is only txt, but from here you can download your list in xls) or from an online list (the list should be available without a password), wishlists are supported, for example, from Amazon.com. In addition, GoodRead offers its users two plugins - one for the browser to work with Amazon, the second for the popular WordPress platform - to display a list of books on the blog.
In conclusion, I want to say that we, the users, have a choice, it cannot but be. But what to choose, everyone already decides for himself. The main thing is that I like it, right?
* - already tested.
** - the widget is being developed.
UPD. Thank you seozybr for reminding you about BookRiver .
The original article is in my blog ( part 1 , part 2 ), and differs only in a large number of links.
My attachments to books and everything-what-around-them make me try and use services directly related to books. Therefore, I am registered in all (known to me at the moment) Russian book social networks.
It so happens that I communicate with all the creators of such services (I am friends with almost all online). I will not say that I somehow strongly participated in the work and development of this or that project, but they consulted me a couple of times. And I'm trying to find the best service for myself. But, perhaps, I will tell everything in order ...
')
How it all began
In 2006, I met Reader 2 (the project itself appeared in 2005 — it turns out to be the oldest), which allows you to create online lists of read books and look for something new to read. I registered there and even posted a list of 43 books, wrote several reviews. However, something did not work out for us, and I stopped using this service. The most useful in this service is the ability to export the list of read books. Unfortunately, only in text format, but already something.
Then I discovered LiveLib . The project appeared in February 2007, it was then that a first post appeared in their blog telling about the idea of ​​the project, and in March, Anatoly Tikhomirov’s associates opened a network for public testing.
At the moment, on LiveLib , I have the largest list of books I have read. What is good about this list is that it is possible to restore the chronology of reading - what and when. You can evaluate the books, however, with only three values ​​— I recommend, neutral, did not like it — and this is not enough to express the whole possible range of emotions. The service does not stand still, the functionality is added. And now you can add reviews, put a link to the source (it is assumed that it will lead to your personal blog, and not to someone else's thought). From the very beginning, it seems, books could be purchased at Ozon.ru; Now you can try to find an electronic version of the book and add a volume to your wishlist.
LiveLib has, probably, the largest user base and constantly increases it (which is promoted a lot by contests with good prizes). In general, this is, it seems, the only project that has an investor.
It’s rather difficult to judge how many “dead souls”, so-called virtuals, are in the project, but there are a lot of them (even the creators themselves wrote about this). “Live” users can chat in the project forum. As for the blog, then, unfortunately, nobody is doing it now. And LiveLib is currently the only network that offers users to place a widget on their blogs (by the way, in two versions - the first one can be set up directly on the site and copied to your blog, and the second version is implemented as a WordPress plugin).
At the same time, in April 2007, I found the advisory service Imho.net . At that moment, as I recall, it was only possible to evaluate books, but this process did not fascinate me. In total, I was able to evaluate 17 books and added one review, after which I stopped using the service.
At the moment, not only books, but films, performances, TV shows, games, music, radio, architecture and even wine can be assessed on this network ... (It’s like Reader2’s desire to become part of a “global plan to take over the world": it’s associated with projects MyFilmz - a social list of films, MyProgs - a social list of programs, TagFacts - a social knowledge base, Bank of Ideas - a social list of ideas.)
Not like others
The book project X-Libris stands apart. The project appeared in February 2007 and works on the principle of social news aggregators. The user adds books, their descriptions, reviews, links to electronic versions and everything they deem necessary, and the community already votes “like / dislike” and thus regulates the rating of a particular book. The state seems to be stable - they use the service, but the future prospects are not clear to me. At the very beginning I added four books, after which I stopped using the service.
In December 2007, we (my blog and I) began to cooperate with the My Books service (then it was also called Book Exchange ). This is not exactly a book network; This is a kind of hybrid bookcrossing and bookstore, you can exchange, give away or sell an unnecessary (here are some!) book or buy some rare edition. Alexander Druzhkov does not abandon the service and is constantly working on it, as evidenced by at least a recent review in Internet features .
In June 2008, I met BukRiver - a service that combines the ideas of bookcrossing and the simple exchange of unnecessary books. I do not change books, do not throw them away. I will not say that it is greedy, but I rarely give books to friends. And so my use of the site did not go beyond registration. ( Probably, for the same reason, I do not participate in the movement of bookcrossers. )
In the role of catching up?
In September 2007, I interviewed the guys from the Book network. Konstantin Fedorov (the author of the project) spoke about the imminent launch, but started only in the summer of this year, and so far only in a closed version, since testing and debugging continues. The highlight of the project should be the Open Book, which will be written jointly by all interested users. As far as this "shoot" - time will tell. Unique chips creators also call the Group, where you can communicate in interests, and Collections, where you can make to add yourself various thematic tapes.
Waiting long enough for the launch, and communicating a lot with one of the Book developers in my hands (with Kostya), I got the right to be the first to play around with the service. I immediately realized that I lacked the ability to import my books from other services. The guys went to a meeting and added some books for me. For which they - thank you very much. Still, it would be great to download books with a list or try to “pull” them using RSS from another service, for example, from the same LiveLib, where the list of books can be printed out. And even tags, ratings or reviews with comments are not important - the main thing is just a list of reads; it's so lazy to add books with pens.
In December last year, My Library was launched, the launch of this project was also postponed for a long time by Anatoly Larin . All the same: books, readers, writers, ratings; but here there are already news and various interesting facts from the world of literature that come from various sources - a significant plus for active users. The recommender system based on the principle of collaborative filtering should become the chip of the system (however, I recommend books that are not entirely in my taste, but it seems that for a better match of interests, it is necessary to note and evaluate more books).
My library is distinguished from others by a very convenient interface for adding books and the lack, unfortunately, of the ability to sort books — all books are listed alphabetically. As far as I can tell, this book network is in second place after LiveLib in terms of number of users and attendance. (I do not take IMHO.net into account because it is not a purely book service).
And in September of this year, I learned about another book network - Bookmix . Having become acquainted , I realized that I like the service. Not to say that he is perfect and completely satisfies me, but strives for perfection. And I am ready to switch to it if, as the creators promise, the import function will be implemented ( for some reason, I tend to trust them, because all my requests and wishes of other users were implemented as soon as possible *).
In Bookmix, there is no ranking of read books in time, but there is sorting by various parameters ( and it was done when we, the users, asked for it ). There is no forum here, but there are well-implemented groups. There is a news feed, which is formed by the users themselves. Here everything is in its place - different ratings for books and reviews (you can write “essays” and get user ratings for them; your rating will increase or decrease, like Karma on Habré - everything is in the hands of users). A little pleasure that others do not yet have is the status of the user “I'm reading now ...” **. In general, I can say that now this service makes me happy.
What do they have?
I will note right away that there are still western networks - GoodReads and Shelfari . But they will remain outside the scope of this article, because I, although registered there, absolutely did not use them. Both services have the ability to import either from a prepared file; for example, GoodReads supports xls, csv and txt formats ( Shelfari is only txt, but from here you can download your list in xls) or from an online list (the list should be available without a password), wishlists are supported, for example, from Amazon.com. In addition, GoodRead offers its users two plugins - one for the browser to work with Amazon, the second for the popular WordPress platform - to display a list of books on the blog.
In conclusion, I want to say that we, the users, have a choice, it cannot but be. But what to choose, everyone already decides for himself. The main thing is that I like it, right?
* - already tested.
** - the widget is being developed.
UPD. Thank you seozybr for reminding you about BookRiver .
The original article is in my blog ( part 1 , part 2 ), and differs only in a large number of links.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/40589/
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