All Things Considered does the LibraryThing
NPR's All Thing Considered did a story on LibraryThing and bookish social networking yesterday. It was a great story, and, I suspect, a perfect audience. Check it out.Right now the story is number three on NPR's most-emailed list. (This is no doubt why traffic hasn't let up!) Abby promises she'll make me a (quinoa?)* cake if we beat out Obama's speech. So, send the story to all your friends! UPDATE: We're number one! Help me, I'm giddy.
They covered some other sites, but I think LibraryThing came off best. Besides talking to me--45 minutes of conversation reduced to ten seconds of tape!--they also interviewed Sean Flannagan of the blog Deeplinking. His blog post include "The Big List of Things I Like About LibraryThing" so I think the reporter got it from all sides.
*As Dan Pashman proved on the Bryant Park Project, we need a quinoa angle to really take off on the most-emailed list. How about the quinoa tag, or the book Quinoa, the supergrain? And neti pots? We got your neti pots right here, guys. Flush out your nose with LibraryThing!
Labels: librarything for libraries, press, press hits
posted by Tim at 2:09 PM
17 Comments:
Great piece on Biblionerds. I would have preferred a more in depth look, of course! Ahem, and they spelled your last name wrong, but I tried to listen, not look!
Congratulations LT!
Hi, the link for "Big List of Things I Like About LibraryThing" is broken.
Correct link here: http://deeplinking.net/librarything/
Oh, it was a truly fine moment on npr, and I hoped yo were lsiteninh, Tim! Is thre some way we nerds could actually listen to the 45-minutes?? I'd be interested.
I discovered that NPR story before this LT blog shared this GREAT story.
I am so very very happy for the growing crew of LT. And, you just might have to expand the team with so many new "bookish" types wanting to build virtual shelfs here.
Kudos!
Hi Tim,
Congrats on the good press!
BTW, the NPR site spelled your name wrong:
Tim Spaulding
Thought you might want them to fix it before it gets archived. Cheers!
LibraryThing,
I could not figure out how to leave my feedback elsewhere. I just logged on and found out that I am not able to add any more books as I have reached the "free limit" of 200 books. To enter more, I must subscribe for a yearly fee (probably auto renews unless I go and explicitly opt-out).
Unfortunately for you, I was not informed about the "free for the first 200 books" limit prior to my spending hours and hours entering the 211 books I could recall off the top of my head I had read. Perhaps your warning was "hidden" or intentionally non-obvious. For me, that is the same as not being informed. For you it is the same effect, I am departing your service.
I have absolutely no intention of paying you for the priviledge of my updating my own list of books. Are you freakin INSANE?! Good luck with your model (ROTFLMAO - still living in the 1990's with your charging models, I can see).
Just to be clear, I have deleted all of my books and intend for my account to go dormant.
Thank you for the great idea. I am saddened you chose to charge the $10 a month. I don't think I am the only client who feels this way. I am just one in a hundred that is vocal about my choice.
Jim
Thank you for your opinion. I have a few thoughts.
1. Screw you for leaving a message on ten blog posts.
2. I can understand your missing one thing, but you are truly blind. The price is on the home page, among other places. But you really looked all over for a place to send feedback? The emails of every employee are posted on the site--on both blogs and on various help pages. Our profiles are posted man places. And there are six or seven groups you could have posted to.
3. LibraryThing has no advertisements. That's the deal you make. If you want a free site with bouncing animated graphics two places on every page, by all means go on over to Shelfari.
Our "model" is working great, actually. We float ourselves on it. Meanwhile, we've looked at advertising. It's a lousy way to float a social network, and even lousier for a vertical social network. We run ads if you're not a member at all—free or paid. Even though a very high percentage of our hits are from non-members, coming in from Google and looking for something specific, not looking to hang around, what we make from advertising wouldn't pay for an intern.
Jim, this is on LibraryThing's homepage:
"Enter 200 books for free, as many as you like for $10 (year) or $25 (life)."
Where did you get $10 a month from? Personally, I think I am underpaying for such a wonderful service!
Two more points:
1. It doesn't auto-renew. I'm sorry you'd think it does. In fact, 5/6 of members go lifetime.
2. If you had clicked on the link to pay, you'd have discovered it actually turns into a pay-what-you-want (with a minimum). We like to surprise people and, frankly, when asked, people actually pay more than we ask them.
God, I didn't see that he thought it was $10 a month. Ha. Well, I can understand why he was upset, then. Still posting the same message on ten blog posts—all of which had the email and profile of every team member at the top of the page!—just rubs me the wrong way. I figured it was the nightly porn spammers when I saw ten identical comments come through my email. Sigh.
I too was cheesed off by his (inaccurate) rant, but I suppose there'll always be a subset of users who feel that the internet wants to be 'free'. Fair enough, but it's not an entitlement, I think.
And that lifetime stat you let slip there . . . is interesting. Not something you've made known before. I always had the impression that most members were non-paying, and am pleasantly surprised to know that the reverse is the case. I certainly had no hesitation in doing so - LT makes reading and collecting books funner, and adds infinite value to these habits for the price of an inexpensive hardcover.
Ah, no, 5/6 who pay go for lifetime. Not 5/6 of all members. If the latter were true, we'd have made ten-million bucks. We'd be valued like Facebook. Not so, alas. ;)
Ah, thanks for the clarification.
Jim, I respectfully suggest that you slow down when you read. From your comments, I came to the conclusion that you were skimming. Where you didn't miss the information entirely, you misread it. The info you needed was cited on either the LibraryThing home page or the LT blog you posted upon. It wasn't hidden. Have a nice life.
Tim,
Love your response to Jim. My thought was that there's no way he has read 211 books because he obviously can't read!
lkmiller -- LT lifer :)
Wow. What a rant by Jim.
I came here to say the because of the "All Things Considered" article, I am now a life member. It's a heck of a deal, and I've already entered over 200 books (a very small part of my library).
I think what really made my mind up was the line on the home page that said: "If the buzz page doesn't convince you, you cannot be convinced. Go away." I feel like I'm home. :)
Thanks for a wonderful site.
I'm new here because of the NPR story as well, and lovin' it! Speaking of which, the cost of a lifetime membership is actually less than I would spend feeding my family of 5 at McDonald's!
I have no beef with upgrading when I hit #201 and doing my part to help Tim reach his goal of some day reclining on an enormous pile of gold :-)
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