Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bookwyrm – A federated social network for reading books

joinbookwyrm.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 198 posts

Re: Bookwyrm – A federated social network for reading books

#71

Post by smcleod »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #38

"Track your reading and what your friends are reading" sounds like classic social network bullshit dopamine trap. Like brag about acheivements in how many have you read through this month or be sad about how stupid/lazy you are while others are so smart and gritty. They should better offer sharing quotes/highlights/remarks/explanations/summaries/follow-ups and discussing these.

I feel like it’s a bit different for books than it is from say - taking staged photos of you wearing some fancy clothes while out to dinner.

For me I follow friends who have similar tastes or interests as I know there’s a good chance I might like what they’ve been reading so will often ask them what they thought of a book if not on the site - when we catch up in person.

Re: Bookwyrm – A federated social network for reading books

#72

Post by chiefalchemist »

briandear wrote: post #35
bluefishinit wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Goodreads proved it could work. But I don’t understand the market problem this one is solving. Goodreads and Shelfari both got bought by Amazon. They killed Shelfari and froze Goodreads development. As users, federation protects us from this. We even have the choice of running our own instance.

I get it. But how big of a demand is there for that? Does the average Wednesday night neighborhood book club care? I am not denying that there is value there for someone, but most people don’t care. People that read books at a level of enthusiasm to join a network about reading don’t think about that stuff. Federation is a feature but it really isn’t an above the fold concern for the vast majority of the potential au…

> Federation is a feature but it really isn’t an above the fold concern for the vast majority of the potential audience.

Federation is a feature, not a benefit. I read your other comments and generally agree. To be fair, the feature vs benefits (that people care about) is an ongoing problem will nearly all new products (I've clicked into) that are shared on HN.

You'd think by now more would get it, but they don't. Instead, it's more, "Ooh! Ooh! Look at our features..." but as you said...no one cares. I would say it also falls under the product classic "don't make me think." Yeah, if I had the time I might be able to convert features to benefits but that takes effort. Sorry. I'm out. Next!!!

Benefits! It's all about me. F*k your features. What are you going to do for me (i.e., benefits)?

Re: Bookwyrm – A federated social network for reading books

#73

Post by cubefox »

It seems the main purpose of "social networks" for books would be to talk about a book you just read. To have a forum for every book in the world. Of course most books are old and few people are reading them, so you would want the network with the largest market penetration among book readers, otherwise people will rarely find anyone to talk to for most books.

Re: Bookwyrm – A federated social network for reading books

#74

Post by zimpenfish »

freilanzer wrote: post #36
raybb wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one thing they're missing for me is private notes. It's super important to me to have notes of where I heard about a book that's on my to read list. Oh and also it would be great if they upstreamed their corrections to open library. But for now I'll stick to volunteering for Open Library and improving the situation there which helps many sites. Current project I'm working on for them is to have their author pages…

You could always message them and tell them why these features would be great to have. Private notes sound useful.

Already on the request list - https://roadmap.thestorygraph.com/requests-ideas/posts/priva... - but missing the "without currently reading the book" aspect that I think 'raybb is talking about.

Re: Bookwyrm – A federated social network for reading books

#75

Post by gureddio »

shaniber wrote: post #17

There’s also Storygraph, a smaller, independent GoodReads alternative. It’s gotten some positive coverage, and I’ve had a good experience using it. https://www.thestorygraph.com/

Both look like something I currently do in a Google Sheet. I might take a look

Re: Bookwyrm – A federated social network for reading books

#76

Post by bavarianbob »

I can't be the only one with a burgeoning appetite for an experience that is solely focused on the individual. I don't care about being social in this domain and that opinion often feels like a contrarian one. I want to track my books, my thoughts on those books, and my upcoming queue. There's a handful of services that provide a wonderful curation of books to read (mostly human-curated) and as such, my queue is never empty.

It seems as if every new service is trying to incorporate algorithmic recommendations, social elements, and other useless frills. Let's get back to the basics. Give me a rock solid digital library.

Re: Bookwyrm – A federated social network for reading books

#78

Post by biftek »

teeray wrote: post #3

It seems that this federated service falls into the same asymmetry that others have—everyone is joining the flagship instance (which negates the decentralization).

This is the inherent flaw of decentralized networks.

You either appeal to people who really care about decentralization (an extremely small group) or you're not really decentralized.

Re: Bookwyrm – A federated social network for reading books

#80

Post by monkeywork »

briandear wrote: post #16

Ok, hard truth time: My step mom is in her 60s, a prolific reader, member of two book clubs and most of her friends are readers. She would never think about joining Bookwyrm because the value prop makes no sense to her. Why does anyone care about federated? (I’m talking normal people here.) Mastodon, Pleroma? What are those? Who cares? Why? (Again, talking as normal people here, the kind of people you’d talk to waiti…

>My step mom is in her 60s, a prolific reader, member of two book clubs and most of her friends are readers. She would never think about joining Bookwyrm because the value prop makes no sense to her.

A free site to discuss books with others doesn't make sense to her? The first line on their website says "BookWyrm is a social network for tracking your reading, talking about books, writing reviews, and discovering what to read next." Sounds like that might be your step mom's jam.

>Why does anyone care about federated? (I’m talking normal people here.) Mastodon, Pleroma? What are those? Who cares? Why? (Again, talking as normal people here, the kind of people you’d talk to waiting in line for a Southwest Airlines flight to Orlando.)

I agree why would she care about any of those things - she's just signing up to a site to talk about books. You're the one focusing on those things not her. I honestly struggle to follow these complaints from tech-oriented folks on tech-oriented websites tying to say that some phantom person who isn't tech oriented will just be deeply lost.

You talk about products based on the audience - here on Hacker News it makes sense to talk about the fact that this is federated and activitypub based, at your step moms book club you'd just talk about the fact that it's a social site for books.

Post reply on HN