41–50 of 214 posts
People aren't sticking around for shiny features or slick UI—they stay because Goodreads has a critical mass of users and reviews.
The value isn't in half-stars or fancy shelves; it's in the network effects. Unless you have a way to bring over millions of active reviewers (and their reviews), you're just building another pretty ghost town.
Off topic perhaps, but what annoys me about Goodreads is that the rating system just doesn't work. Everything seems to be 4-5 stars. You're relying on a whole mix of people, from tweens to teens to old goats, who may, or likely don't, have similar tastes. A pointless exercise imo. Similar to going to reddit for reviews. It's not what you really want.
I don't mind a goodreads alternative, but regarding the UI from 2005, I am not sure I care. It works and people are used to it. I am not a supporter of "let's try build a new interface using shiny new technology" for the sake of new .
Of course there are plenty of monetisation and engagement reasons for that UI item to be awkwardly placed…
Kaguya seems a little better here, but it too starts with a huge 'MAKE AN ACCOUNT OR FUCK OFF' message in mid screen, with the search field in the navigation bar on top. If you want become the Goodreads alternative, start with realising that a lot of people just want to see if the reviews are any good before committing to creating an account and contributing in turn.
I would be much more interested in a Goodreads alternative that focuses on articles/substacks/newsletters etc. There isn't a good way of sorting through all the stuff out there and I feel like I am missing a bunch of content worth reading as a result. Out of curiosity how did you initially populate your site?
But if someone could make this work in a way that it's like a "if you liked this you might like" version of HN/lobste.rs it could be really useful.
What will make a site like this useful though is:
1) How many people use it -- for this usage needs to be as frictionless as possible. You might want to consider at least being able to view it (though perhaps not post reviews, to avoid spam), without signing up for an account.
2) The quality of the reviews. If they're Amazon product level garbage, they become useless. One thing that might help is being able to filter by range of reviews -- i.e., see 2-4 star reviews only; or filter by books with an average rating computed _without_ taking 1 and 5 star reviews into account.
3) Not sure about 10-star rating system. I think that's harder for users to keep in their head. I'd suggest 5-star but allow 1/2 star ratings.
> 10-star rating system (More nuance than 5 stars) Does one really get anything meaningful out of saying this was a 6-star book vs a 7-star book? Personally I think 4 levels is sufficient. Either it's rather bad, not bad but not good, good but not great or it's great. Anything beyond that will have to be written in words.
> 10-star rating system (More nuance than 5 stars) Does one really get anything meaningful out of saying this was a 6-star book vs a 7-star book? Personally I think 4 levels is sufficient. Either it's rather bad, not bad but not good, good but not great or it's great. Anything beyond that will have to be written in words.
No, and that's why Netflix switched to thumbs up/down instead of 5 stars.
It doesn't matter how many times you down vote Mexican soap operas or singing talent shows. If you keep watching they're gonna keep suggesting them.
How does this compare to https://www.thestorygraph.com/ ?
Came here to say this - the Story Graph is fantastic and highly recommended.
> 10-star rating system (More nuance than 5 stars) Does one really get anything meaningful out of saying this was a 6-star book vs a 7-star book? Personally I think 4 levels is sufficient. Either it's rather bad, not bad but not good, good but not great or it's great. Anything beyond that will have to be written in words.
Rating is a mess. Still I think people are used to express their opinions on a 0-10 scale, and they will appreciate if they can just keep doing that.