Avast me hearties!
Shiver me timbers, LibraryThing hit the Yahoo "new and notable" page (http://dir.yahoo.com/). In 1995 this would have been HUGE. I'm not sure anyone checks it anymore, but maybe they do. It's below and to the right of the main entry, "Talk Like a Pirate Day."
posted by Tim at 4:28 PM
15 Comments:
Arr, that be good news indeed! I'll be celebratin' with the GOOD grog tonight! Yaaarrrrr....
Your site is gonna be purchased in no time either by Yahoo or any other big fish. Good for you!
That would be nice, but I think you're wrong. There *might* be 10,000 people in the world who want to catalog their books online, but there aren't 100,000 or 1,000,0000. Whether by memberships or advertising, you need very large numbers to make something work. With luck LT will be a small but real source of income for me; I don't think it can be more.
There was an interesting if rather dismissive post about LibraryThing on a blog called "technogoggles." The author "didn't get it."
She writes:
"I mean what would compel you to catalogue your book collection ... when there are existing tools to assess relationships between authors and people such as Amazon's 'people who bought this' etc. Some odd people do do this I know - even it's it's by size, colour, whatever on their bookshelves. I just don't understand it."
I wrote a reply agreeing in part and dissenting in part.
http://www.technogoggles.com/technogoggles/2005/09/book_things.html
Aye Aye you crew and new salty dog
In the web seas floats a book hog
Enter your books or walk the plank
Captain Librarything do we thank
I still use Y! as my home page (*blush*), and how excited was I when I saw LT right there at the top!
Shiver me timbers, I was giddy, that's what.
I'm SO excited about this website, but I have a question....how come some books in the catalogue won't "add" to my list?
Hey, give me an example. Also give me your username. Thanks, Tim
Jennier, it wasn't on the *main page* was it? It was on the directory page, which is the monkey's uncle. Right?
Nah, don't call that an interesting post. That's from the type of person who reads a book a year simply because they feel socially obligated to, and then they choose some high-falutin' gobble-de-gook that's supposed to be "good" for them--- not, heaven forbid, enjoyable. The poster can't even comprehend actually loving books.
And honestly... Amazon is part of what has made me wish for something more. Sure, you can record whether you own it or not, or whether you want it, and even review it. But you can't track it and sort it in the matter that YOU want to... Amazon isn't intended that way. It's intended to sell.
I can't say this'll hit a million users. I can't even say for sure it'll hit 100,000. But I'm pretty sure, as word spreads, LibraryThing is going to blow by that ten grand and leave it far behind.
And then again... we wouldn't want a "big fish" to get ahold of it. They'd only be interested in using at as yet another marketing tool.
Tim, neither - you can configure your my.yahoo page as you wish, and I just happen to have the three Daily Picks front and center at the top of mine.
Well, it made *me* happy, anyhoo :-)
hey i found librarything with yahoo! so hurrah n this is a cool site!
Speaking of clouds, there appears to be a bit of fun parsing entries with non-alphabetic characters (Patrick O'Brian was the author example, and my attempts to use a ! tag failed miserably)
And, I do hope this doesn't get taken over by a larger site.
I agree with Shawna on the 'not an interesting post.' What I gathered is that... well, if it's not something she's interested in, what's the point? LibraryThing doesn't apply to her world, she can't see a way to make it fit in, so what are the rest of us bothering with it? It only has a limited use, obviously.
That use is limited only by what you want out of it. Just want to catalogue your books -- there you are. Want to know who else has collected/read the same books as you? Check that part. Want to find out if they have some books in their own collection that might look interesting to read, since you have some other books that cross path? Go check. Want to ask that collector a question or two about their books? Post to their page.
She doesn't want anything like that out of it because I don't think she sees the use in books. This is not a dating service. Not everything on the Internet has to do with personal relationships -- but maybe that's what she's looking for? I don't know, but I think she's made some decision about what makes a site important, and personal relationships is one of them. Sorry -- happily married, not looking for an affair, don't care about anyone else's lifestyle here. I'm just interested in the books listed, as well as finally having an easy way to get a handle on my own collection.
Does she have this vision that people only go to the library to meet the perfect man or woman? Apparently the idea that people might have an interest in the books themselves, and what other people with like interests are reading, is beyond her comprehension.
Maybe I just missed some key point in her post, but it seems to me that she's someone who just wouldn't find a reason for spending time at the site, and can't see beyond her own interests to why others find it fun, helpful, or useful.
In addition to cataloguing and looking for peer recommendations and so on, I can see myself using LT (perhaps a free login, to keep it separate from my actual catalogue) to keep reading/to-be-read lists, shopping lists, wants lists for eBay etc (I buy quite a lot of secondhand oddities), etc. I got the 'but I don't want to use it, so it's no use at all' response from a couple of people when discussing it, which seemed a shame. Greater compatibility with existing files/wider import/export facilities might convince some of them, I guess.
I cannot tell you how much fun I am having with this, even if it does mean that I'm going to have to *finally* sort out the spare room so that I can get to the boxes and double-stacked bookcases therein. LT as an incentive to do housework? Who'd have thought...
Bopeep, a separate login is a good idea for a reading list, but… don't you plan to read more than 200 books in the future?! (;
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