08 – Book Reviews

A growing social network category is that of the Book Review Network, where users create lists of books, write reviews of them, group books together in new ways, and use each other to find more books that they might like. A book oriented social network has the capability of being one of the ultimate readers advisory tools.

1. Check out these three sites:

1. LibraryThing (http://librarything.com/)
2. goodreads (http://www.goodreads.com/) – Read about it at infodoodads (http://infodoodads.com/?p=13)
3. Revish (http://www.revish.com/) – keep in mind that Revish just launched in April 2007, so it might not have the level of content that other book review sites have.

2. Tag the sites in your del.icio.us account.

3. Go to Technorati and conduct searches using “Librarything,” “Goodreads” and “Revish” as different search terms. Browse through blog posts about the sites. If you find a blog or blogs that you like, add them to your Bloglines.

4. In your blog:

a. Compare the look and feel of the sites, navigation elements, capabilities and limitations. Which is most appealing to you?

or

b. Link to a post you found using Technorati, and write a blog comparing your own ideas about one of the sites with the ideas of another blogger.