Social Books Hopes to Make E-Reading Communal
Submitted: November 11, 2010 - 4:18pm
Originally published: November 11, 2010
Last updated: November 11, 2010 - 4:19pm
Source: New York Times
Author: Jenna Wortham
Outside of a book club, reading a book is a pretty solitary affair. Two entrepreneurs, Jason Johnson and Jason Illian, are trying to change that with a new mobile application called Social Books.
"Short-form content on the Web is very interactive, very dynamic," Mr. Johnson said. "You can see which of your friends read the same article and what they thought of it. It made us ask, 'Can this be applied to long-form content? Can we take the advent of social media and apply it to the way we read books on tablets?'" Social Books works like most e-reading software in that users download titles to their tablet or phone. The main difference here, however, is that users are able to leave public notes on a particular book, chapter or passage, and comment on the notes left by others. They can also share their digital bookshelves with friends on Facebook and Twitter.
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Social Books Hopes to Make E-Reading Communal
