The artistry of writing about how Goodreads is broken, on Medium, which is completely broken. Well done, well done.
Goodreads Is Broken
81–90 of 292 posts
Re: Goodreads Is Broken
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you set up a non-standard browsing environment you can get around it, but it's still a trash experience for the rest of us. I no longer follow Medium links at all.
All you need is one plugin, uMatrix, to solve it. Prevent medium from loading cookies and javascript, and you're good. You do need to enable the github gist javascript though to see gists.
I already solved it, by not following the links. I don't need to complicate my life to work around some user-hostile business model.
Re: Goodreads Is Broken
#83The only major complaint that I have against GR is that it is quite slow.
I don't really care much for recommendations right now, because the user-created lists will often get you what you want faster.
Furthermore, I think GR does a good job of classifying the books, or rather letting their readers classify their books for them.
All in all, I think the site should be more responsive, but there are tonnes of places to have long discussions on books, genres, plots and other things over at reddit.
Re: Goodreads Is Broken
#84We set out to build a better Goodreads a while back called Helloreads (my wife thinks we didn’t differentiate our name enough but whatever). It never seemed to get traction probably due to the monopoly and network effect of Goodreads. We thought and still do that Goodreads user interface is terrible, the site is slow, the reviews are too volatile. The one thing that we truly could not compete with them on is the data. The book data problem is insanely hard. New books come out and there is not authoritative database of book metadata. We had a blast building (and the iOS app) it but have put the development on hold.
[0] https://www.helloreads.com
[1] My books: https://www.helloreads.com/ryanhittner
Re: Goodreads Is Broken
#85I read quite a bit and generally like Goodreads for what it is, but I agree that it's essentially not grown at all in 12 years. There are parts that are broken, there are features that are lacking, and it frustrates me to no end. Many, many times I've thought of how I'd build a competitor, but it is pointless because Goodread's moat is too big: the integrations with the kindle go a very long way towards cultivating e…
I once worked for a startup where we attempted this, in a sense. We built an app that let users take a picture of their bookshelf, we scanned the spines then digitized your "Shelfie". Our pitch was that we would give you the ebook of the print book that you own either for free or at a deep discount.
We built a pretty complex recommendations engine on top of this and quite frankly, it worked really well. Simplified, if you have actual photos of bookshelves it's easy to start building recommendations. Person a read a,b,c, person b also read a,b,c, however, person a read e,f so maybe person b would also like e and f.
The main issue is that publishers are archaic and building a sustainable revenue model against that is a challenge.
Re: Goodreads Is Broken
#86> I am looking for Ronan Farrow’s ‘Catch and Kill.’ It appears, inexplicably, after two books not titled ‘Catch and Kill.’ This bothers me to no end in Google maps search results. It seems like every time I'm searching for some chain> the first two results are for stores that are hundreds of miles away and in towns that I've never visited (which Google should also know!). The one that's a couple miles away / the one…
In Google Maps, I go “Home” every second trip. Yet, when I type “Home” (or whatever the French equivalent is), the only suggestions I get are “Home depot” and “Homeware shops”. I went as far as setting a “place” labelled “fghjk”. I still get other results, despite using “Fghjk” every second trip!!!
Also visible in Youtube. There’s a French guy who explained what it was to be raped by a woman, and I often refer people to it (and half a dozen other videos). When I search for his video’s title and his channel name, I systematically get 2 other results first, generally videos about how many women get raped, from the Huffington Post, often the ones with fewer views.
It really feels like Google is trying hard to dodge the correct answer.
Re: Goodreads Is Broken
#87The article doesn't mention my biggest pet peeve about Goodreads: it makes you type reviews in HTML. It's 2019, how hard is a WYSIWYG editor? Or at least accept Markdown! One more complex feature I'd love from an ideal-world Goodreads is ephemeral book clubs. Find people who want to read this specific book , read it together with them, and then disband.
Ephemeral clubs happens on reddit, in many subreddits, involving many types of media.
I mean yeah you can do it on GR with a group as well, but I'm talking about a built-in book club feature with a timetable, chat, status updates, etc. Say I'm looking to read War and Peace this winter. I find a bunch of other like-minded people, and we set a timetable, read it together, then disband.
Re: Goodreads Is Broken
#88I read quite a bit and generally like Goodreads for what it is, but I agree that it's essentially not grown at all in 12 years. There are parts that are broken, there are features that are lacking, and it frustrates me to no end. Many, many times I've thought of how I'd build a competitor, but it is pointless because Goodread's moat is too big: the integrations with the kindle go a very long way towards cultivating e…
I wouldn't be so defeatist! I used Goodreads manually for a bit. Adding books only takes seconds which seems inconsequential compared to how long it takes to read them. I didn't continue with it because there just wasn't any real value. I don't want a trophy shelf of read books or get automated recommendations by "people who have read similar books" because those titles are very predictable. I'd need something differ…
I only use it manually, and you're right, it doesn't take much to add a book. I did use the integration on the Kindle when I used a Kindle, but I switched to checking out paper books at the library last year, and I haven't missed a beat.
Re: Goodreads Is Broken
#89> The recommendations suck, the lists suck — it’s like, 100 lists telling me to read The Handmaid’s Tale and Harry Potter. I had the same experience with GR and also Amazon.com which constantly peddles the vampire romance books when I am looking for recommendations for horror/fantasy. Both Amazon and GR strategy make sense because best-selling books sell the best, so they should recommend them to increase profits. Ho…
Suggestion: enable a website preview! https://medium.com/slack-developer-blog/everything-you-ever-...
I shared your link in a chat, but it doesn't show itself off: https://i.imgur.com/r5hTqwG.png
(Got good suggestions from the first book I put in, thanks!)
Re: Goodreads Is Broken
#90> The recommendations suck, the lists suck — it’s like, 100 lists telling me to read The Handmaid’s Tale and Harry Potter. I had the same experience with GR and also Amazon.com which constantly peddles the vampire romance books when I am looking for recommendations for horror/fantasy. Both Amazon and GR strategy make sense because best-selling books sell the best, so they should recommend them to increase profits. Ho…
Neat. Just a small note: On the "Best Of" page, the year selection is too narrow for my system (Chrome on Windows 10, WQHD). The two boxes only contains "20 " (twenty and some empty space); clicking/hovering one reveals those "up/down numerical selector arrows". You probably want to make them a little bit wider?