Announcing LibraryThing Mobile
It's very hard to take a photo of a mobile phone screen.
This is what the screens look like on a decent phone.(I don't know know about you, but I hate it when company say it's "very excited," but this is me, Tim Spalding, and I am very excited. Really. Take my pulse; this is the highlight of my damn week!)
The URL for LibraryThing mobile is:
http://librarything.com/m
You can see it in action on a fake screen at:
http://www.librarything.com/mobile-tester.php
The idea is simple—you get the most important features of LibraryThing through your cell phone's "internet" feature. So you can check whether you have something—by title, author, tag or ISBN—when you're in the bookshop, browse your catalog, and read your reviews. You can even accesss your "Pssst!" recommendations. But I don't know anything about cellphone security, so you can't add items, and you can't look at private libraries—even your own.
Don't fret, you almost certainly have SOME kind of internet connectivity on your phone. My old black-and-whie Sprint phone had it. Abby's old, crappy Verizon phone had it. The only difference is how many lines you'll see at time, and whether the Amazon covers come in. Needless to say, internet access usually costs something. My phone costs $5/mo. and regular "minutes"; Abby's phone charges a piratical 1 cent per kilobyte—so I tried to keep the pages super clean. LibraryThing is not responsible if you run up $500 in charges.
Many thanks to the LibraryThing Mobile beta testers, Astrud, Birdie, Deirdre, Edward, Sarah, Woodrow. There are probably some more problems, but I am—see above—too excited to wait any longer.
So, the question is: Does it work for you? What else do you want it to do?
PS: Yes, I am still interested in an iPod version, and plan to work on it soon.
PPS: I can't find my copy of Amazon Hacks. Does anyone have the URL for an Amazon Mobile link? I need to include it if I'm going to draw on Amazon's cover art. Of course, I'd include links to any other mobile book sites. Are there any?
posted by Tim at 10:56 PM
42 Comments:
My phone, while it may be crappy, is Cingular, not Verizon :)
Whoops, that's my phone. Your phone is junk, however.
I've used my phone to connect to the internet once. Actually, I was connecting my Palm Pilot to show it off to someone. Afterwards, I thought I'd better check how much that session had cost me. If you think 1c/KB is bad, try Telstra in Australia at 2.2c/KB. My initial session cost me about $20, so I haven't bothered since.
I really need to look around for a better plan, because I'd definitely make use of a mobile version of LibraryThing..
LT.... on my phone? HELL YEAH!! Keep it up, Tim. LT rocks my world!
Way Cool - I might even be willing to pay for internet on my cell phone now! Didn't think it was worth it otherwise - but the pile of duplicates I've found while cataloging keeps getting bigger!
colemansheep
I tried out the mobile version at librarything.com/m after seeing the post on the librarything blog, but after providing my username, i get the following error:
"404 Not Found
The requested url /m/home.php index.php was not found on this server."
Anyone else getting this? Really excited about this feature and hopefully I'm just doing something wrong. Will post this to both blog and list...
- Chris
Works for me on a Sony Ericsson T630 via Telstra (Australia). Very nice.
Hi Tim,
It's hack #73 in Amazon Hacks - nothing specifically about covers there though (won't image links be the same except you want the smallest size).
Most of the hack is about different product paths: PDA, RIM Blackberry, WAP, HDML, VoiceXML.
Do you have a specific question I can try to answer.
Bob
PS Maybe mislaid books call for a high resolution Google Maps mashup with LibrartyThing and the liberal application of rfid tags.
felius said: "My initial session cost me about $20, so I haven't bothered since."
*ggg* I am waiting for the bill for the LT test session, too. They charge 0,09€ per 10kb if I remember correctly. One catalog page has 5 kB, a recommendations page 6 kB. Maybe a mobile version that relies on synchronising the data rather than reading them real time might be an idea? I know that it is technically a whole lot different from the web interface. The mobile web LT is a very good start though!
A.
My wife has been mildly interested in my librarything activities, but when I showed her this, she went bonkers! The thought of being able to check our holdings while in a bookstore has both of our pulses pounding. Thank you Tim! Bob F. (serph)
"Does it work for you?"
It works very fine both in the built-in browser and in Opera Mini on my Sony Ericsson W800i :)
(The 'normal' page also works quite good - though far from perfect - in Opera Mini btw.)
"What else do you want it to do?"
Well, standing in that bookshop, I might actually not be especially interested in my own reviews. Even if I've given a book five stars and a great review, I'm not likely to buy it again. (Not saying that it doesn't happen though ;) )
It would be much more useful to be able to search for a book across the whole of LT and read what *other* people have to say about it.
Oh, dear, oh, dear. I only recently (a year ago) succumbed and bought a cellphone. I certainly have never seen the need for Internet access on it.
And now you've gone and done the one thing that could make me do it. Just because in the last few days I have acquired duplicate copies of two books, which this might have prevented (though admittedly one involved that annoying "let's give it a different title" problem).
Excuse me while I go and try to find out whether my phone/phone company supports this and, if so, how much my phone bill is going to increase.
Thanks so much. ;-))
Intolerable: I think your cellphone is misunderstanding the relative URL ("home.php") in a form. I rewrote it absolutely (as "http://www.librarything.com/m/home.php"). Try again?
Tim
Greyhead: Sorry. No, I'm looking for the URL to a book within Amazon local. (You do NOT want to load a full Amazon page onto your cell phone!) I know there's a hack there. I'll look around and see if I can find it elsewhere. Surely they're not hiding it, as much as it looks that way.
Ottox: I agree. I will look into adding a "work" search. I disagree about your own reviews, however. I see the primary purpose of this mobile application and all mobile applications as being when you're stuck waiting for a bus and somehow forgot to bring a book or a newspaper to read, and you've already read the advertisements ten times. In such situations you just need to see words, any words. Okay, maybe I'm projecting here :)
Lilith: I'll bet you have the option and that if you try to use the option it brings up a screen telling you how it works. ("If you continue, you will be charged $5 this month.") I've seen three phones like that so far.
Works like a charm on my Axim PDA :) In fact, it's quite readable. Just the thing I need though... a reasonable excuse to buy into that T-mobile wifi at Starbucks...
http://www.amazon.com/mcommerce
For PDAs, that's the 'Amazon Anywhere' site. It redirects to a messy link.
And this is Amazon's page on it's various mobile options:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/subst/misc/anywhere/anywhere.html/102-2748808-5160907
Tim, might Google Book Search be your friend in finding that hack? I don't know enough about what you are trying to do to evaluate the results, but try starting here.
I'm getting that 404 msg similar to what Chris got, but it's not when I am already in the site being asked for a password. When I try to use the url as entered in my Verizon favorites list on my cellphone--once I've logged onto the web--I get a 404 saying the url is no good.
However, if I forget the favorites and just retype the url I succeed every time. I realize that this isn't a Librarything thing, but does anyone have a clue for me?
I checked and all the info: http://www.librarything.com/m is correctly entered in my favorites!
What am I doing wrong?
Thanks, Bob F. (serph) using anonymous because of a glitch on our computer. Don't Ask!!
I'm getting that 404 msg similar to what Chris got, but it's not when I am already in the site being asked for a password. When I try to use the url as entered in my Verizon favorites list on my cellphone--once I've logged onto the web--I get a 404 saying the url is no good.
However, if I forget the favorites and just retype the url I succeed every time. I realize that this isn't a Librarything thing, but does anyone have a clue for me?
I checked and all the info: http://www.librarything.com/m is correctly entered in my favorites!
What am I doing wrong?
Thanks, Bob F. (serph) using anonymous because of a glitch on our computer. Don't Ask!!
Works for me... Motorola V325, Verizon, using MobileWeb4U and Openwave. This could really come in handy on my weekend runs to used bookstores. Thanks!
Waahhh! I don't HAVE a cellphone! Now I WANT one!
Not getting one, but this is extremely cool.
Well done!
*lol*, Tardis. I am thinking of upgrading to a wifi-enabled PDA (my 2-year contract with the mobile provider ends in November). Tim, what have you done?
A. (GirlFromIpanema)
Tim: sorry, no Amazon Local in my Amazon Hacks - it's the first edition and probably predates Local Search
Table of contents of Amazon Hacks
sample hacks
Hack 72? Deep Linking to Amazon's Mobile Device Pages
(maybe I shouldn't post about things I don't understand.. ;-) )
I'm very keen for this to work, but I only get the following error: "The requested item could not be loaded. Wrong MIME-Type"
(Using a Nokia 6310i from the UK.)
Works fine on my Cingular Motorola flip phone (don't ask me what model number it is) with one exception: what I assume are intended to be ellipses that truncate overlong titles on a search results page show up as "&hellip" for me. This is brilliant, Tim!
Okay, *that* was a childish mistake. I mean they show up as "(ampersand)ellip"
I've never bothered to have my phone enabled for web browsing - it can do it, I just never saw the point. Now I have a real reason! This is going to be a huge help to me - and a huge relief to my husband who must be sick and tired of me phoning home and saying "can you just look on librarything to see if I have a copy of...". He's ever so patient with me, and would never let on, but he must be fed up to the back teeth with it. Thanks so much Tim!
Love it! Just last week I was in the bookstore and had to use my cell as modem to my PDA to lookup a title.
This makes it much easier and I've used it twice already.
Tim, this is great, cool, amazing... It even works on my i-mode mobile!!!
(Mitsubishi M341i). Thanks a lot.
Works on my Nokia 3650 using Opera Mini via Rogers here in Toronto. Finally an end to dup!
Dear Tim,
About the photo you took of your cell screen with the LT page loaded.
Actually, you CAN take a good photo of your cell phone screen.
I'll assume you have at least a 3+MP camera, unless your using 35mm film, and thats ok to.
Get into your settings on your cell and there should be a setting for dimming or lightening the screen brightness.
Dim the screen down just a tad.
Now, with the viewing screen on, on your digital, fit the image of your cell screen as close as you can to a full screen shot within the parameters of your cameras close up capabilities. To close and your shot will be blurry. You can crop it later.
What you see is what you get. Take the shot. NO FLASH!
You could also use the zoom feature, but beware of lost resolution.
Personally, I have no need for the web on my cell.
If I had it , I'd just send you a beautiful, crispy clean screen shot.
Other then that, if you get a good to moderate shot and send it to me, I'd be happy to clean it up and send it back.
I hope this was helpful.
Just saw this announcement, Tried it and it works great!! Many thanks!
If you're keeping track of what works, I have a LG-VX8100 with Verizon Wireless and unlimited Mobile Web so this'll work really fine for me.
EC
When I select Author and then try to go to any page other than the first one, it jumps back to page one in title mode.
What am I doing wrong?
At my most often visited local used book store, the owner lets me go behind the counter and use their computer to look up librarything and see if I already have something.
But this will be good for the other ones.
I have tried bookpedia on a test basis to download book list into ipod, but ipod converts the list into "Notes" and apparently there is a limit to the number of notes an ipod can hold, something like 124 if I remember correctly.
Good luck on exporting librarything catalogs to ipods. I'm pulling for you.
This didn't display all that well on my iPhone. So I wrote a quick hack at http://www.kitzkikz.com/iphonelt.
On my cellular phone I see too many details per book in my list. Therefore, it takes far too long time to scroll through my list. A function is needed where you only see author and title, nothing else. If you had that view, it would be much easier to scroll through your own list when you are in a shop. The purpose is to be able at a glance to see if I already have this book at home or not. I dont want to scroll for 30 minutes as it costs too much. And I have not found such a short view yet.
On my cellular phone I see too many details per book in my list. Therefore, it takes far too long time to scroll through my list. A function is needed where you only see author and title, nothing else. If you had that view, it would be much easier to scroll through your own list when you are in a shop. The purpose is to be able at a glance to see if I already have this book at home or not. I dont want to scroll for 30 minutes as it costs too much. And I have not found such a short view yet.
The main thing I want from the mobile app is to be able to look for ToRead or ToBuy tags when I'm standing in the book store and can't remember a single title on those lists.
I am bummed that I can't add books. I understand your comment about security, but I am unsure about how adding new books is a security risk. I use my LT to document the books I have/have not read/listened to (I am a librarian) and being able to add books to my list while I am at the grocery store/book store/library would be an awesome add.
Loving it so far! Thanks!
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