LibraryThing hits 3 million books
Another big milestone: LibraryThing hit 3,000,000 books today!
The pace is quickening. Fridays are the slowest days, but LibraryThing users still added 15,000 books to their catalogs—and 20,000 Thursday. I can't pin this on any particular source—I even ended a brief experiment with Google ads—just the gradual lifting of boats from an increasingly viral site.
The three-millionth book was William Gibson's Count Zero, added by bastardsnow at 3:45pm EST, and shared with 346 other LibraryThing members. Hey there—you now have a paid account!
For those keeping score at home, LibraryThing would now come in 79th on the American Library Association's list of 100 largest US libraries, climbing 21 spots in 30 days. And yes, I know LibraryThing isn't a library by the ALA's definition, nor by many other definitions. Whatever it is—I'm pulling for a "republic"—it's growing.
The pace is quickening. Fridays are the slowest days, but LibraryThing users still added 15,000 books to their catalogs—and 20,000 Thursday. I can't pin this on any particular source—I even ended a brief experiment with Google ads—just the gradual lifting of boats from an increasingly viral site.
The three-millionth book was William Gibson's Count Zero, added by bastardsnow at 3:45pm EST, and shared with 346 other LibraryThing members. Hey there—you now have a paid account!
For those keeping score at home, LibraryThing would now come in 79th on the American Library Association's list of 100 largest US libraries, climbing 21 spots in 30 days. And yes, I know LibraryThing isn't a library by the ALA's definition, nor by many other definitions. Whatever it is—I'm pulling for a "republic"—it's growing.
posted by Tim at 11:51 PM
21 Comments:
Hey, wonderful! Congratulations!! Again.
I'm plumping for an eventual 'no. 1'! Though 17 would do. :)
We're glad to note there will be no library cards issued to this 'republic' (of letters?), but I've got a burning desire to show some patriotism. (Only fitting in a new republic.) Will the old idea of t-shirts (say CafePress), ever be revived? Or has it been, already? I have exactly two t-shirts that support any product or label or brand. I'd like to make it three. (Or four. One can't have too many t-shirts that say 'LibraryThing'!)
I'm drinking a toast to you in my tea.
T-Shirts? There's gonna be THONGS!
Actually, doesn't Book Crossing call itself a "republic of books"? Someone does. A Canton democracy of books? Not catchy.
Note: The THONG reference is to the fact that Cafe Press has that option. See F*d company (http://www.cafepress.com/fcompany).
That site concentrates on company-implosions—it started as a dot-bomb site. For some reason it also started collecting pictures of hotties wearing (or partially wearing) their t-shirts—a sort of "girls of pets.com" feature.
I don't that's going to happen with LibraryThing. Indeed, the principle problem with putting t-shirts up is that someone needs to model them. Maybe I can pay someone at the t-shirt store.
Considering the literal translation of "republic" I think that you couldn't pick a better term to describe the growth of LibraryThing.
LOL
Ok: if you put a book on it, I will wear it.
(WEAR, not MODEL.)
But it's the shirts I fancy, and it can't be too hard to find someone to show 'em off for you. Though personally, a photo of the item itself would do.
Congratulations on reaching the 3,000,000 books! Wow!
I've not been around much because Real Life caught hold of me and still hasn't let go. I still have over half the collection to get listed here, and I'm getting pretty annoyed that I haven't had a chance!
But it's still one of my favorite sites. Congratulations again -- and thank you!
bastards now! bastards now! ba--
What? SNOW? Are you sure?
Well, that doesn't make much sense.
Congratulations, Tim. Another good milestone for a great site.
- JBD1
Zette. Great to hear from you again. One of things I hope for LibraryThing is that even if people "go away for a while," they'll come back--even if only once or twice a year. Having hundreds of books in a database is a powerful reason.
Looking forward to the second half of your books...
Congrats on hitting 3,000,000! It's gratifying to see a non-commercial book site thrive in this increasingly illiterate world.
All hail the Most Serene Republic of Thingamabraria! :^)
No comment on thongs, but if LibraryThing generates a laptop-sized sticker I'm in for one.
Hey Edward. Great to see you drop by!
I think I calculated a while back based on the rate (maybe at 2 million) you would get to 3 million, pretty sure it was a couple of weeks later than this.
That would be a GraphThingy for you.
:)
If you sell thongs for librarything, you really need to change the logo for the thong to the very obvious "LibraryThong".
But, congratulations on the 3,000,000th book - it's fun to see the site climbup the "library list."
However, I tend to think a count of "real users" is a more meaningful statistic. ("real users" means someone who added books to librarything more than in a 10-minute trial of the site - people with over 50 books - or who add books over multiple months, things like that.)
This is an interesting milestone. A more interesting, and perhaps more important, would be reaching 1,000,000 UNIQUE books. Do you think LT will be there by its one year anniversary?
Anyway congratulations on the growing membership and books catalogued.
JFB: "Real users" would be a better statistic, but it's also a very wiggly one. Certainly a sizeable chunk of users came and basically left. But I read on the blogosphere all the time things like "I signed up a few months ago, but didnt do much. Now everyone's talking about it again, so I went back and 'wow!'" Ditto a metric based on "activity this month." Zette, for example, appears to have gone away for a couple months, but she still has thousands of books in the system, enriching everyone's data, and, as she said, she's coming back as soon as she can. At least total books isn't wiggly.
"Unique books." The number on the Zeitgeist page represents how many LibraryThing 'works' there are. Since nobody else uses the same concept, I'm not sure how valuable it would be. Maybe I should show "unique ISBNs," even though LibraryThing uses ISBNs as identifiers not at all.
I just checked, and LibraryThing has 780,000 unique ISBNs--about the same number as the "works--for what that's worth.
I noticed a problem searching for books by "Madeleine L'Engle" -- instead I got books by "Madeleine Lengle" (only four results instead of the expected, well, many). I assume this has got something to do with that apostrophe. Wasn't really sure where to post bugs, but the comments here seem to be checked pretty often...
I find it unfortunate that you are so commercial. While I like what LibraryThing has accomplished, technically, I dislike the way you try and commercialize everything. I saw google ads recently. You use your own amazon number on books so that if people buy through click throughs you get the profit. *And*, on top of that, you charge users. I am more than willing to pay for a service - but this is pushing it too far...
You saw Google ads? No, you didn't. LibraryThing uses a Google Groups for feature discussion, but that's entirely external, and I don't get a dime.
Just to be clear LT has NEVER used Google ads.
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