ivantohelpyou

Shelfari is a Web 2.0 startup that lets you can create your own virtual bookshelf, browse other bookshelves and leave comments. The company received $1M in funding from Amazon. (more)

I asked Scooter for her take on the Shelfari concept.

It's for people who only read so that they can tell other people what they read, because you know they only read half the @#$% they say that's on there. You think they're going to put Danielle Steele up there? I don't think so.

Or it's for people who know how many pages are in War and Peace. If you're really reading it to read War and Peace, why would you need to know how many pages there are?

I respond:

I have to admit that on some level, this service does appeal to me.

In fact, I did read War and Peace, and counted the pages. Not that I didn't get caught up in the story of Boris and Natasha and the rest, but it was for a class and I was on a deadline.

And I did take inventory once. In fact, I have an Excel spreadsheet with over 500 rows, listing title, author and category, plus an indicator of whether I should keep, sell or donate. That was a fun evening.

For users of the service, the fundamental question is, "When should I Shelfari a book?"

Here are some possibilities:

• Based on ownership. This requires that you take inventory, and the problem is that you have to keep it current. It's easy enough when you're in acquisition mode, where every time you buy a book, you add it to the Shelfari list. But then what? What if you lend the book to someone. Do you have to update your Shelfari list? Or what if you sell a book? What if you move across the continent, put boxes of books on your front lawn for sale at $1 each, and then donate the rest to charity? Would you have to keep your laptop open at the yard sale to update your Shelfari? Or what if you put all of your books into boxes for storage in the basement of a warehouse? Should those books be in your Shelfari?
  
  
• Based on readership.You can create a bookshelf containing every book you've ever read. But then you have to deal with several edge conditions. First, as Scooter points out, what if you read a book that you're not proud of reading, or that you don't want on your permanent record? Second, what if you didn't finish the book? Third, what if you didn't really understand the book? All of these conditions make the choice of which book to add a decision fraught with potential errors in judgment.
  
  
• Based on social signaling. Here's the sweet spot. The point of most of these Web 2.0 exercises is to meet other people with similar interests. And the point of meeting people with similar interests is to have an excuse to hook up. So, if you use Shelfari, don't ask yourself whether you own, intend to own, read, intend to read, or if you've have had any first-hand association with any particular book.
  
  Instead, you should ask yourself, "What does this book signal about me?" Create the aspirational YOU based on the people you'd like to meet. Want to meet other people enchanted with the hijinx of the Russian aristocracy? Go ahead, add War and Peace to your Shelfari. Do you like cats? Well then, add a bunch of cat books. Think of it as a dating service, and you'll be spot on. By contrast, if you add 500+ books to your online collection, you're never going to hook up through this thing. People who collect books won't want you moving in with all of your books into their already crowded living spaces, while the people who don't collect books will think you're an obsessive kook.
  
  Keep it to the 10 to 20 books that you'd talk about at a party and you'll do just fine. Rotate often, and don't get caught with yesterday's bestseller on there, it makes you look cheap. Nobody wants to talk about that. Just go to the NY Times bestseller list once per week or so, and add a random book that strikes your fancy.
  
  
• Based on logrolling. I would also recommend Shelfari for authors who want to blurb other authors with the expectation of a quid pro quo. This is a variant of social signaling.
  
  
• Based on desire to share your opinions. OK, I get it. You read a book, and you want to share your opinions. By posting your reviews on Amazon, Shelfari or any other such location, you can be assured of getting a built-in audience.
  
  But that's far too limiting. Unless you're getting paid to write a review, why should you bottle your opinions into a reaction to a single book? Look at what professional scholars do: They examine literature for trends and connections relating to the author, other works, society at large, genres, theories, you name it. The book itself is nothing more than a starting point for further exploration of literature and culture. But if you limit your writing to Shelfari, you're stuck with the "book review" form. Forget it, use a blog.
  
  And, if you're really dead-set on writing reviews, you can still use a blog for that while still getting the ability to make sure that your reviews get pulled into the Web, by using microformats. The general idea is that you use agreed-upon HTML tags to mark up your writing. Specifically for reviews, the hReview format defines a way to present your review (of a product, business, event, person, place, website or URL) in a standard format that search engines can read. Use this hReview Creator to see how it works. For example:
  

  Inspiring!

  Feb 26, 2007 by Ivan Schneider product

  War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy

  ★★★★★ Loved this book! Clocks in at a hefty 1185 pages, but keep in mind that some of that is for the critical essays, which includes notable philosophers Isaiah Berlin and Woody Allen. You can totally get through it if you pace yourself.
  

  

  0.3

  This hReview brought to you by the hReview Creator.

  Even better, if you register yourself as an Amazon Affiliate, you can get paid if someone clicks on a book that you review. Go ahead, click on the War and Peace link above and read the damn thing already. You know you want to. Come on, how cool would it be to say, "I was reading War and Peace the other day, and it really spoke to me about the situation in the Middle East." (In the interest of full disclosure, I'd get about $0.81 on the transaction if you take my advice.)
  
  Do you think that Shelfari would let you embed affiliate links in your book reviews? No way — and that's why Amazon invested $1M into the company. My advice to would-be reviewers: Write your own book reviews, say whatever you want, use microformats to tag your content, and why not collect a little of that Amazon commission while you're at it?

Labels: Web 2.0