What Are They Reading? Sharing Personal Favorites Via Social Networking Sites

September 06, 2007

In the physical world -- the realm of bricks and mortar, streets, trees, and actual human beings -- independent bookstores often evolve into a community's "third place": a gathering place where people can meet and exchange ideas. So, it's no surprise then that in the virtual world a number of book-related websites have morphed from sites where users catalog their home libraries into an online third place (or perhaps "fourth place") for bibliophiles.

Goodreads, LibraryThing, and Shelfari are among the sites providing booklovers with an easy way to create their own virtual libraries of titles they have read and want to read, and to share their love of books with like-minded individuals.

Joining any of the sites is free and easy to do. To become part of the community at any of the book sites, a user simply has to register and the fun begins. You can search book titles or authors and add them to your library, and you can rank each book along the way. In addition, these sites allow you to not only review books, but to compare your library with others and to see who has a catalog just like yours. Similar to other social networking sites, users can add "friends" (e.g., online users they know in either the real or virtual world) to their profile, and join any number of groups. While each site offers users the ability to network and to create their own libraries, they also each offer their own unique aspects.

Each of the founders of these library sites stressed, in varying degrees, that the social networking aspect is a key focus of their sites. And the same goes for the sites' users: among the many user profiles at each site, you will find people who have libraries with thousands of titles and fewer than 10 friends, users with zero books and hundreds of friends, and everything in between.

But wherever your mouse takes you, discussions about books and a lot more are going on -- and that's always a good thing. Just as people might go to bookstores to meet up with others, users are in touch with other book lovers, only in hyper drive: Comments on books have branched out into thousands of broader discussions on an enormous range of issues, and user groups focus on topics as diverse as crochet, ecological justice, and marine biology.

"Social networking was very much on my mind when I started LibraryThing [in August 2005]," said founder Tim Spalding. Today, his site boasts over 246,000 registrants. "If we were at a cocktail party 50 years ago, a book would come up in conversation. In most of America today, you would probably strike up a conversation about a movie, because there's a better chance the person has seen a particular movie.... It's a lot of fun to talk to people about books, but the opportunities are less and less. LibraryThing makes it possible to have a conversation about an obscure book."

Otis Chandler, who founded Goodreads in 2006, told BTW, "Our culture is undergoing a shift from a 'mass-media' society to a 'niche-media' society, and sites like Goodreads are becoming the gathering places of these thousands of niches."

Shelfari CEO and co-founder Josh Hug stressed that, while you cannot replace human interaction, a site like his provides users with "an outlet to augment a bookstore. Books are very social -- when you read a good book you want to respond to it."

Shelfari, which launched in the fall 2006, was created because "I love books... and there wasn't a good way to express your love of books on the Internet," said Hug. "We wanted to build [an] application to breathe new life into the media of reading and books." And, just as YouTube is a community based on video, Shelfari is a "community around books."

Chandler said Goodreads began as a pet project. "I like to read and I tend to borrow books from my friends," he explained. "One afternoon, when I was scanning a friend's bookshelf, I noticed that people tend to keep their favorite books on their bookshelves -- and I realized that information was invaluable if you could get it online. So, I really started Goodreads because I wanted to see what all my friends' favorite books were."

On the Goodreads website, Chandler notes that he wants Goodreads to make reading fun again. "There is, of course, a percentage of people who read a lot and would disagree that reading ever became un-fun, but there are many people who work too hard and don't find the time," he explained. "We think the reason for this is the lack of a water-cooler culture around discussing books. We're hoping that if people use Goodreads and see books they have in common with their friends, it will foster more discussion and get people interested in reading more."

Spalding said LibraryThing began as "a hobby project. At the time, I was making a lot of little sites... and took a month out to make LibraryThing. It was in line with what I cared about." He refers to himself as "an insane book hound." LibraryThing is "built on top" of Library of Congress data, he noted, though users can click an option to search for a title through 82 other sources from around the world. Since the launch, he said, the site has "grown like crazy."

Spalding noted that LibaryThing is two sites in one, a cataloging website and a social networking site. "People drift from the cataloging side to the social side," he explained. However, he said that, initially, the "social uptick" that occurred on his site was surprising. Most unexpected, however, was "the degree of passion people are willing to put into it... LibraryThing members do a lot of stuff on the site." The site is based on a wiki model, and since its launch, users have actively participated in the site's development, by uploading author photos, combining various versions of a book under one title, among other things. "What I do is 10 percent of what LibraryThing is," Spalding said.

The burgeoning popularity of these book sites is attracting the eye of a number of publishers, authors, and booksellers alike. LibraryThing recently worked with Random House in the "LibraryThing Early Reviewers" program to help Random House distribute ARCs to the "right people," Spalding noted, and he added that his company will be working with other publishers in the future.

LibraryThing is integrated with three independent booksellers -- Shaman Drum Bookshop in Ann Arbor, Michigan; Porter Square Books in Cambridge, Massachusetts; and City Lights Bookstore in Sylva, North Carolina. If users choose to add one or more of these stores to their profile, when they click on a book in their personal library, it will indicate on their own user page whether the bookstore has it in stock and what the price is. Users also have the option to choose an outside site where they can shop for the book, including BookSense.com, Powells.com, and Tattered Cover, among other independent bookstores listed.

Goodreads offers users the option of shopping for a book at BookSense.com, Amazon.com, Half.com, Barnes & Noble, AbeBooks, Powells, "your local library," or Audible.com. Users looking to add a book to their library have the choice of searching Goodreads or various Amazon.com databases (e.g., Amazon.com or Amazon.fr).

Shelfari's Hug noted that he always had Shelfari's potential usefulness to the book industry "in the back of my mind" when planning his site. In February 2007, Amazon.com became a leading investor in Shelfari. In addition, a number of publishers have profiles on Shelfari, and there's even a huge BookExpo Literary Insiders group. Users looking to shop for a particular book click through to buy the book at Amazon.com.

Chandler noted that Goodreads has big plans to expand its Authors Program. "This is a way for authors to have a profile on Goodreads, and interact with fans, list their favorite books, post excerpts of their writing, or upcoming events," he said. "It's a bit like what MySpace has done for music except it's for authors." --David Grogan

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