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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

#191

Post by zozbot234 »

all_usernames wrote: post #101
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.

You can submit citation data for any written work (including books or scholarly articles) on Wikidata and view the citation, coautorship etc. graphs on the Scholia frontend. Works quite well in practice.

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

#193

Post by shreyshnaccount »

switchstance wrote: post #186
shreyshnaccount wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Havent posted publically just yet.. I couldn't find any good podcast exploration platforms or tools. Things like moonbeam are too random and things like subreddits either too inactive or too based on human recs and have a cold start problem. Its a real PITA finding good podcasts. So i figured I'll build a thing for it. The intention is to have something like a book club and what parent was saying for podcasts.

Check out Fathom. https://hello.fathom.fm/

Pretty cool, thanks for sharing! I took a cursory look, but this seems to miss the community element like the grandparent mentions, would make my project kinda redundant if they did though

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

#194

Post by nosedrip »

lacker wrote: post #22

Very interesting... some feedback. So I search for "Proust", and the top 8 results are not Proust. Since Proust has one extremely famous book, I thought it would show up, rather than a bunch of different commentary on Proust. So I finally find the page for In Search Of Lost Time. However, it says none of my friends have read it. Well, of course not - I don't have any Booqsi friends yet. So, there's just nothing I can…

some great books you're mentioning here, I'd love to see your recommendations in an app like this, perhaps we'd need to move away from an algorithmic recommendation system, but rather influencers based on 'moods'? There is a radio station that works like this NTS, they even claim "not curated by algorithms", but still scalable and solid music. I love this concept.

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

#195

Post by lacker »

nosedrip wrote: post #194
lacker wrote: post #22

Very interesting... some feedback. So I search for "Proust", and the top 8 results are not Proust. Since Proust has one extremely famous book, I thought it would show up, rather than a bunch of different commentary on Proust. So I finally find the page for In Search Of Lost Time. However, it says none of my friends have read it. Well, of course not - I don't have any Booqsi friends yet. So, there's just nothing I can…

some great books you're mentioning here, I'd love to see your recommendations in an app like this, perhaps we'd need to move away from an algorithmic recommendation system, but rather influencers based on 'moods'? There is a radio station that works like this NTS, they even claim "not curated by algorithms", but still scalable and solid music. I love this concept.

Yeah, the problem to me with algorithmic recommendations is that they aren't sufficient. I don't see that an algorithm recommended book X, and then immediately go buy the book. No algorithm is that good.

So if I see an interesting book from the Amazon algorithm, the natural thing is to read the reviews, but book reviews are really hard for me to trust. So many people reading the book have a different background, different priorities, different reading ability, they are just looking for something different in a book. So when I read book reviews I simultaneously have to figure out "does this reviewer think like me?" and "is this the sort of book I want to read?" And Amazon or Goodreads book reviews are just too shallow for this.

Over time, though, I start to learn what book recommenders I can trust. Many different sources. Some friends of mine, some bloggers, some book awards, they like the same sort of book I do and I respect their recommendations.

I read a lot of books, though, and I'm not really sure if the "mass reading public" is similar enough to me for my personal product judgment to be relevant to the task of building a Goodreads competitor....

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

#196

Post by sugaroverflow »

justinberding wrote: post #40
silas wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Goodreads allows you to export your library via CSV.

Right, if the question is asking about exporting your book lists from Goodreads and then (eventually) importing them into Booqsi, that's definitely allowed.

Yes, sorry! I may have phrased that incorrectly - I meant exporting your Goodreads data and importing them into Booqsi (which Storygraph allows you to do, though it can take some time).

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

#197

Post by sugaroverflow »

justinberding wrote: post #21
sugaroverflow wrote: post #8

Booqsi looks really pretty and I love that it supports local bookstores! Are there plans to support imports from Goodreads? I know many people who have curated their shelves for years so that might be an important feature for them to switch over. I've been using and loving an alternative, https://www.thestorygraph.com/it has similar vibes to Booqsi and also includes a Goodreads import, AI based recommendations, and s…

Yes! We realized pretty quickly that we need a way to import booklists (specifically from Goodreads), so we're actively working on that! Should be rolled out soon. Yes, I've used StoryGraph as well, but felt like I needed something that provided a few more social features. The book mention feature of the social feed is one of my personal favorites with Booqsi.

That sounds really great, good luck with that! I will definitely keep an eye on Booqsi, a social feed sounds really nice :)

Storygraph seems to be attempting something similar with the pair reads, but it feels a bit clunky and isn't there yet.

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