Re: reader2 (was: Re: ACTION: paulmiller to look at librarything)

I did look at this one a while ago, and was unimpressed in a comparison with
LibraryThing.

I'll look at it again.

Paul



On 12/12/06 14:28, Ivan Herman wrote:

> Paul,
> 
> In wonder if you know this alternative:
> 
> http://reader2.com
> 
> I tried to go in, registered, and added some books. I can look at
> 
> http://reader2.com/tag/semantic_web
> 
> and gives me some info, including rating. It does have an RSS feed:
> 
> http://reader2.com/rss/tag/semantic_web
> 
> that could be used for mashups if needed. And the output can also be
> sorted by date.
> 
> Caveats:
> 
> - the server seems to be pretty slow
> - I am not sure who is behind this site, ie, how stable the system will be
> - the page is pretty much full of ads:-( but it is fully free, no limits
> on the books that one can use...
> - a *major* caveat: it does not seem to integrate the tags from
> different people (that may make the whole thing unusable for us):
> because I added Tim's book to the list and somebody else has done it,
> too, in the book is listed twice, instead of once with the rates somehow
> averaged:
> 
> http://reader2.com/tag/semantic_web
> 
> Ivan
> 
> 
> Ivan Herman wrote:
>> Hi Paul,
>> 
>> I began to play with this. I created a user 'ivan_herman' and added four
>> books to test with. But, somehow, it still smells quite 'beta' to me,
>> althought it might be a good service indeed.
>> 
>> For example, I tried to use your [2] click below. All I got is what
>> seems to be a SQL dump rather than a list of real books. Also, I do not
>> see my user id appearing among the ones who use this tag (although that
>> is what I tried to use). I also tried
>> 
>> http://www.librarything.com/tag/semantic%20web
>> 
>> which seems to be the same...
>> 
>> [3] crashes:-(
>> 
>> It is therefore difficult to see how useful this is (but I will try
>> again, after all, beta is beta!).
>> 
>> Another question: is it possible to search the books by the years? I saw
>> the authors but, in our case, a bunch of books are edited by people,
>> which is hardly relevant; if I want to find, say, ISWC2003, I would
>> prefer to go for the year...
>> 
>> Also: it would be good if the data could somehow be mashed up with other
>> data, like the RDF data provided by Chris Bizer (see the wiki page on
>> books). Is there an RSS feed for a page like [1]? That could be a start
>> 
>> I am happy to continue playing with this for a while, though
>> 
>> Ivan
>> 
>> Paul Miller wrote:
>> 
>>> There was an action on me from last week to take a look at the suitability
>>> of LibraryThing [1] as one channel by which to push out information about
>>> Semantic Web books, etc.
>>> 
>>> Taking a quick look, [2] 16 people currently tag 18 books [3] as being in
>>> some way related to the topic.
>>> 
>>> In each case, you can view descriptions of the book, find various ways to
>>> get hold of it by buying or borrowing it, or look at related and recommended
>>> works.
>>> 
>>> Given the number of people claiming to own any one of these titles, the
>>> really valuable network effects are not kicking in fully. However, if 'the
>>> community' were encouraged to embrace this as a way of increasing awareness
>>> and understanding then it could certainly serve as one useful tool amongst
>>> many in our toolkit.
>>> 
>>> Give it a try for yourself, maybe recording a couple of titles that *you*
>>> own; registration is free, and you can catalogue up to 200 books for free as
>>> well.
>>> 
>>> See something like [4] or [5] for examples of the possibilities once the
>>> crowd gets wise...
>>> 
>>> See also [6] for one way in which a colleague of mine has been able to
>>> further enhance the display...
>>> 
>>> [1] - http://www.librarything.com/
>>> [2] - http://www.librarything.com/tag/semantic+web
>>> [3] - http://www.librarything.com/tag_allbooks.php?tag=semantic%20web
>>> [4] - http://www.librarything.com/work/16738
>>> [5] - http://www.librarything.com/work/11754
>>> [6] - http://www.talis.com/tdn/greasemonkey/librarythingthing
>>> 
>> 
>> 

-- 
Dr Paul Miller
Senior Manager & Technology Evangelist, Talis
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skype: napm1971
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Received on Tuesday, 12 December 2006 15:01:04 UTC