by J253 on 9/12/20, 10:33 AM with 77 comments
by prepend on 9/12/20, 11:51 AM
I just use it as a list of books of I’ve read and am reading, and to see books that my friends are reading or have read.
It’s been funny to me that the search is horrible and seems to be something worse than just regexing a list of book titles. But I eventually find what I’m looking for. It’s sucked as long as I can remember.
The recommendations are also really bad, it has never recommended a book to me that I thought was interesting or I ended up reading. This is despite having over a thousand read and rated books from me. I’ve been waiting for them to be able to search all the books I don’t know and find one that I will like.
I kind of like the site as it is quaint, but functional. It’s like a library in that way.
by Hokusai on 9/12/20, 11:45 AM
This is the main point.
It is the same thing that Oracle purchasing MySQL. What once was a promising raising technology is nowadays stagnant. (Interest over time https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%...)
GoodReads could help to find better books to read. But, Amazon likes the current state where Amazon recommends the books that are good for their business and not the best for the reader.
10 years ago, I would buy anything Amazon recommended on books. Nowadays, I do not use Amazon anymore as it just promotes books that, I guess, have larger profit margins or align better with Amazon strategy. It cannot be trusted as a recommendation engine.
by Mediterraneo10 on 9/12/20, 12:34 PM
My own bookish, nerdy Goodreads subculture is very different: we already have more books on our to-read list than we could realistically get through, we don’t really need auto-generated recommendations for more. We review a lot of serious non-fiction, not just the mass-market stuff, and genre tags like "dark" or "edgy" don't seem relevant, while being able to add "trigger warnings" misses the point.
Yes, GR users like myself are probably a minority, but we’re a very established and recognized minority. We're the sort that keeps some independent booksellers alive, for example, so any new site that aims to maintain a culture of books and reading ought to take us into account.
by freddie_mercury on 9/12/20, 12:31 PM
The author complains that searching for 'holiday heart' didn't show Margarita García Robayo's book in the top hits. But searching for 'holiday heart robayo' does.
As for the rest of the piece...the belief that algorithmic recommendations are going to be easy for some shoestring budget startup run by a single person in their spare time is somehow going to do a good job simply isn't credible.
People still complain about Netflix recommendations and they've spent tens of millions of dollars, possibly over a hundred million dollars, on it and are one of the most valuable companies on the planet with one of the best engineering teams on the planet.
Why do people think algorithmic recommendations are easy? Or even desirable?
by imglorp on 9/12/20, 12:03 PM
Start with some HN or Reddit style forum discussion code. Some income could come from affiliate links to indie booksellers. (Is there even infra for such a thing right now? Need to build that too?)
Edit, answering myself, this guy has some thoughts: https://tomcritchlow.com/2020/04/15/library-json/
Edit, as for the index corpus, the USLC does okay: https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/search?searchArg=0312937385&se...
by gravitas on 9/12/20, 1:11 PM
by Aeolun on 9/12/20, 12:40 PM
I can’t really take it seriously while it still looks like some random programmer’s side project.
That said, it’s readable and mobile friendly, so that’s a win.
by garmaine on 9/12/20, 10:44 AM
by matthewfelgate on 9/12/20, 10:02 PM
All I want from Goodreads is:
* A nice way to see all the books I've read
* Maintain a list of "Want to read books"
* A decent recommendation system for my next read
by vhpoet on 9/12/20, 10:42 PM
by BigBalli on 9/12/20, 8:29 PM
by ubermonkey on 9/12/20, 12:43 PM
I mostly stopped using GR because it just seemed like a noise platform — and, I guess obviously, I didn’t want to give Amazon any more data about me.
by sradman on 9/12/20, 1:03 PM
This pattern has occurred repeatedly with metadata associated with digital media; CDDB vs. iTunes, IMDB vs. Amazon DVD listings, Goodreads vs. Amazon book listings.
Rather than assuming that Amazon is strategically hampering Goodreads functionality, I assume that Amazon is a large company that misses opportunities to delight its customers. Giggles ensue every time I come across a "We don't have any cast information" message in Amazon Prime Video.
Hanlon's Razor [1] applies: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity".
by doiwin on 9/12/20, 12:14 PM
Is it discussing new books?
If so, what is the reason people want to discuss new books? Anybody here who does it?
If so: Why do you do it? And do you do it before or after you read it?
by LockAndLol on 9/12/20, 1:57 PM
As a TL;DR for Good read users: The StoryGraph. Check it out.