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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

#121

Post by chiefalchemist »

dymk wrote: post #86
justinberding wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No downside, it's just not something the site provides today as part of beta. An anonymous experience is something we're exploring.

A sign-up wall for a site which should be able to show me public book reviews and recommendations is a non-starter for me (and probably 99% of users clicking the link). I really don't need another social media platform, I would like a book discovery system though.

Yes, something(s) as a 100% "free sample" just makes sense, especially if traction is a goal.

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

#122

Post by kingcharles »

Ugh. Hate it when I get emails from noreply@ .. how about setting up an email address for support?

How do I find other people? I guess I can't find people on the site to network with? I have to find them outside and bring them in?

I'd like to have a username and be able to expose a bookshelf, e.g. King Charles' Favourite Business Books

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

#123

Post by sinkasapa »

lf-non wrote: post #110
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 choo…

I don't find BookWyrm to be confusing at all. I assume most people use many applications without diving into every single feature or learning an underlying API that may be available. Why should BookWyrm be evaluated according to a different standard? I feel like you're conflating your confusion with how the fediverse works with a particular application that you don't seem to have evaluated based on its own merits.

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

#124

Post by godshatter »

justinberding wrote: post #50
mminer237 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After using it a few minutes, it's apparent that it's a very social site. There are no public reviews. You can write reviews and share them with specific friends or post them to your wall, but they're only ever visible to your friends. Presumably this is a privacy-focused design decision intended to increase sociability, but it would make an anonymous account useless. There are no GIFs.

1). Persistent design choice, as its built to be primarily a social platform. We felt like an account with your name was bare minimum for something like this to function correctly. 2). No GIFs. But, noted that GIFs could be a fun add.

If you add gifs, please allow an option to turn them off. That's one of my biggest pet peeves about Goodreads, a lot of reviewers put a gif after every sentence or two and it drives me up a wall. I want to read a review, not watch a series of tangentially-related short video snippets.

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

#125

Post by mlok »

skrbjc wrote: post #112

Interesting, but that name is cringey for some reason. I can't put my finger on it, but the way it looks and how it is said in my head, puts me off.

I wanted to say the same thing, it is quite rare that I feel the name is so bad that I don't want to be part of it. I am sorry to feel this, but it is my (strong) first impression.

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

#126

Post by justinberding »

kingcharles wrote: post #122

Ugh. Hate it when I get emails from noreply@ .. how about setting up an email address for support? How do I find other people? I guess I can't find people on the site to network with? I have to find them outside and bring them in? I'd like to have a username and be able to expose a bookshelf, e.g. King Charles' Favourite Business Books

The email you're referring to is just the single "magic link" email to get you signed in for the first time, which is how Slack and other "magic link" sign-in processes do it too.

You can reply to every other email you receive from booqsi and someone from the team will see it and get back to you. Or, you can reach out directly to contact@booqsi.com or feedback@booqsi.com.

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

#128

Post by hadem »

I really wanted to like this website but I find the lack of password and magic links a very annoying way to authenticate to the website. I also imagine the magic link would confuse many users who are used to a traditional login form with email address and password.

I admit, this site caught my attention but I refuse to have to check my email, for a link that doesn't resolve behind my firewall, just to authenticate to the site (every single time).

Honestly, Goodreads without an account is more useful than this site with an account. At least I can search and read reviews on Goodreads without an account.

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

#129

Post by costcofries »

Very neat, about time someone tried to disrupt goodreads. Here's some thoughts:

- Get people to create a bookshelf as part of the onboarding experience, even with just a few books that they are reading, or have read. What you'll be able to do is instantly provide some recommendations. Finding new books is hard! You have a nice opportunity here to drive really valuable recommendations. Amazon doesn't know what's on your shelf, they know what you've bought or "saved" to buy, this is important.

- Get influencers to upload photos of their bookshelves and do the leg work of digitizing them. Heck, maybe even make this a feature and auto-magically digitize your users' bookshelves for them. Or even better, do some research and figure out what vertically specific influencers are reading, then manually create those bookshelves and accounts.

- 10% affiliate fee is not going to be enough, you need to figure out a much better way to make money, this will be your hardest challenge.

GL

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

#130

Post by fancy_hammer »

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

Sounds fun!
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