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Show HN: A more social, Amazon-free alternative to Goodreads

booqsi.com

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Re: Show HN: A more social, Amazon-free alternative to Goodreads

#101

Post by all_usernames »

bduerst wrote: post #95

As a potential power user of your platform, let me just say I really hope you solve the book recommendations problem, agnostic of sales or other influence. I spent almost as much time hunting for new books/authors as I do actually reading them. Social feeds, custom bookshelves, etc. are all already-solved problems or window dressing compared to this real gap of creating a truly usable book graph.

I really like the idea of a book graph. Heck, if the platform suggested that I read the references for books I'm currently reading, that would be interesting.

Re: Show HN: A more social, Amazon-free alternative to Goodreads

#102

Post by coupdejarnac »

justinberding wrote: post #35
paxys wrote: post #14

This is great but I'm not going to sign up just to see what the site looks like. There's no reason for a large part of the functionality (book info, ratings, reviews) to be behind a login wall. As it stands right now Goodreads is a lot more open.

To be honest, if you're looking just for book info, ratings, and reviews, Booqsi probably isn't the right site for you anyways. It's specifically meant to be a social platform, not a ratings or reviews site, which is why we don't actually have give users the ability to do either. We built it to be a social platform for you to engage with your community about books, with the underlying motivation that a book recommend…

There's zero chance I sign up for this if I can't see it beforehand. It's not a good look for something that purports to be more open than goodreads.

Re: Show HN: A more social, Amazon-free alternative to Goodreads

#104

Post by elefantastisch »

coupdejarnac wrote: post #102
justinberding wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, if you're looking just for book info, ratings, and reviews, Booqsi probably isn't the right site for you anyways. It's specifically meant to be a social platform, not a ratings or reviews site, which is why we don't actually have give users the ability to do either. We built it to be a social platform for you to engage with your community about books, with the underlying motivation that a book recommend…

There's zero chance I sign up for this if I can't see it beforehand. It's not a good look for something that purports to be more open than goodreads.

From what I can tell, there is literally nothing to show if you don't sign up. The site is entirely social. You have a feed and recommendations which are shared among friends. It's basically like saying there's zero chance you'll sign up for email if you can't see it beforehand.

Re: Show HN: A more social, Amazon-free alternative to Goodreads

#105

Post by [deleted] »

randomcatuser wrote: post #59
hombre_fatal wrote: post #18

I once was part of a now-defunct reading forum in my teens. On the forum, people would package three related books into quests. A boring example would be a dystopian quest pack with three books about three very different dystopian scenarios. But the quests people put together were usually more interesting. I remember a "Weird Magic" quest had books with really unconventional magic systems. I found Motherless Brooklyn…

Oh this is so neat!! Thanks for the idea Anyone want this? Can have it up in March

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: A more social, Amazon-free alternative to Goodreads

#108

Post by Dave_TRS »

personjerry wrote: post #99

There's one of these every other week. IMO "more social" and "Amazon-free" aren't the 10x improvements you need to compete with Goodreads

"more social" and "Amazon-free" may also not lend themselves well to bundling together. For me personally I'd love an Amazon-free version of goodreads that was built by someone who actually cared and updated it. The social stuff is a huge turn off though especially knowing it is being forced on the user judging from the other comments here

Reminds me of Brave browser that lumps "privacy browser" with "browser stuffed full of weird crypto crap", the latter I could do without.

Re: Show HN: A more social, Amazon-free alternative to Goodreads

#109

Post by [deleted] »

nicbou wrote: post #90
hombre_fatal wrote: post #18

I once was part of a now-defunct reading forum in my teens. On the forum, people would package three related books into quests. A boring example would be a dystopian quest pack with three books about three very different dystopian scenarios. But the quests people put together were usually more interesting. I remember a "Weird Magic" quest had books with really unconventional magic systems. I found Motherless Brooklyn…

This is a great idea. I often go on a month-long tangent of related books, films, podcasts and articles. Currently it's the space race and the war in Afghanistan. It would be cool to have "an introduction to _____" lists for this.

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: A more social, Amazon-free alternative to Goodreads

#110

Post by lf-non »

rsolva wrote: post #77

I use BookWyrm [0], which is not only social but decentralized (ActivityPub) and thus interoperable with other social networks like Mastodon. It's nothing fancy, it just works and it is nice to be able to follow (or share) quotes or reviews on books within the Fediverse. [0] https://joinbookwyrm.com/

As someone who has occasionally dabbled with fediverse, but never quite dived in, I have always found federated applications to be confusing from UX pov.

In this case, what does interoperability mean ? When I sign up for the service I see options to create profile with one of the instances - how to choose an instance is not very obvious from that page. Some instances have specific themes, others don't - should I choose based on how much my interest overlaps ? Based on reputation of who runs those instances ? What are the consequences if I make the wrong choice ?

Also, If I already have a mastodon account I can supposedly use that to participate in the discussions on BookWyrm. However I have no clue how to actually do that - any attempt to comment/like posts takes me to a login page which doesn't seem to have any support for connecting to Mastodon.

Until the UX improves for me to be able to make these kind of choices in a very short amount of time, I am more inclined to pick a traditional sign up and start using kind of service - and I'd assume I am not the only one.

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