Last week I said if someone invented another social media site my head might explode.
Well…KA-BLOOIE!!!!
Yes, we bibliophiles have a new social domain: !
Named after the sound book pages make when thumbed, Riffle has been dubbed “the Pinterest of book discovery” by Publisher’s Weekly. Could it potentially change the way we learn about great new reads? Absolutely! Could your head also detonate? Let’s put it this way—if you ever wanted to sport a mushroom cloud, you’re in luck.
The Publisher’s Weekly article didn’t reveal much, featuring jargon-heavy quotes by Riffle founder Neil Baptista, like this beaut: “We’re going to focus on bringing the audience to the table and curating the information. There’s a ton of online expertise, and we want people to push their content through Riffle.”
So what the heck does this all mean? How will Riffle work?
Well, yours truly worked in high-tech market research for a decade (from 1993 to 2003), so I called upon one of my smartest digerati buddies to give it to us straight.
Chris Rechtsteiner is the founder and chief strategist of blueloop concepts, a boutique research and advisory firm focused on the mobile and digital media market. Chris has worked on many publishing projects, so he’s very knowledgeable about the intersection of books and digital applications.
Here’s what Riffle may be:
- The idea is to build a truly Facebook-connected social reading group/platform. How this isn’t GoodReads is a mystery, but apparently the need to build a GoodReads 2.0 is there.
- The company behind Riffle, Odyl, already has templated/socially-integrated foundations for bringing content about books to consumers, so they have a fast and easy starting point.
- The core objective is to really bring forward the content being created/discussed about a book (that’s what the curation reference hits). When Tweets, Facebook posts, blog posts, etc. are posted about a title, they’ll all be “magically” brought together to give you a complete look at the “conversation” and “group” around a book. (Again, GoodReads, but with MORE noise.)
- Odyl isn’t a novice at this stuff as they’ve been able to do a really good job of building publisher relationships, so they’ll have the “blessing” of the publishers to do this right out of the gate. (Translation: they’ll have books featured with deep, rich content day one and it will grow from there.)
And here’s how they may do it:
- Supposedly the “curated” information (e.g. people scanning blogs, reviews, Twitter, etc.) is going to be done by experts, so there won’t be “noise” (per se) but only the best information on a particular title.
- This means you’re going to have to have HUNDREDS of “experts” there to sift through everything in order to have any volume of books at all… which means scale is a serious issue because the books that get the Riffle treatment will be “selected” … and likely tied to the publisher relationships (read: publisher financed through marketing budgets/author marketing dollars). While that last part might not be true, it wouldn’t be surprising, as no one has yet deeply tapped the publishers’ book marketing dollars online like the brick-and-mortar booksellers and traditional media have.
(I applied for more information on Odyl, and I was asked, as an author, how much money I planned to spend on book marketing this year, so Rechtsteiner’s ideas sound spot on.)
If you had to bet your money, right now, on what Riffle ultimately does or becomes, you’re going to see a GoodReads that is a series of lists or collections of books that have a narrative by an expert. This is how the expert would really play. The question is how many people they employ (or allow?) to be experts as to how rapidly these narratives and book lists are created. And who will these “experts” be? How will they be vetted? Will they be Riffle employees, contractors (like About.com guides), or volunteers (like Wikipedia writers/editors)? All this remains to be seen.
So is anyone on Riffle now? Yes. What did we hear about it? “Pinterest for books sounds really interesting, until you realize that people don’t repin books on Pinterest today.” (True dat. The most repins I get are for recipes, home decor and fashion. Did I just say true dat?!)
So…only time will tell. But as Chris Rechtsteiner told me, Riffle is needed and welcomed. “While there are no shortage of book discovery tools and platforms coming to market today (Riffle, Jellybooks, etc.), it’s hard to argue with anyone’s efforts to make reading more prominent. I have some doubts regarding how social book reading really is (in the web’s definition of social), but one thing will remain constant and true for a while: there are simply too many titles to choose from and finding the next, best one to read [online] will remain a challenge for a long time.”
If you’d like a Riffle invitation, this link is your ticket.
Many thanks to Andy J. Smith, illustrator extraordinaire, and Chris Rechsteiner of blueloop concepts for helping me pull this blog post together while I tried to stuff gray matter back into my skull.
16 comments
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July 2, 2012 at 3:05 pm
Diandra Mae
I pin and repin books on Pinterest, but I’m a super-book nerd with at least six boards dedicated to book titles. I know that my pins get shared by people in my loop (fellow authors/illustrators & sometimes friends with children or who read the same grown-up lit), but I agree that those are not the posts that will show up on the “Popular” feed page.
I hesitate to say I’d jump on the chance to be on Riffle because I love Pinterest for its curating abilities on things besides books, but also because more people I don’t know and who aren’t “bookies” (like foodies) see what I pin regarding books and I hope that I help spread the word on my favorite titles. It is an intriguing concept though, but I’m afraid the almighty marketing dollar will sway and shift what is displayed in the end.
July 2, 2012 at 3:09 pm
Tara Lazar
I think one of the most interesting things that will come out of Riffle is what it will do to Goodreads. Goodreads has not had much competition thus far and they’re good at what they do, but they’re gonna have to step it up.
July 2, 2012 at 3:10 pm
Catherine Johnson
Wow, you are hot off the press with this info, Tara! Thanks for putting us in the loop. The picture is also way cool! I can’t believe we have to join something else, rather than just find some way of joining Goodreads to Pinterest. It seems a shame to have so be spread so thin. I really like Goodreads even though I don’t even use it to its full potential. You’ll have to let us know what you make of it 🙂
July 2, 2012 at 4:11 pm
Darshana
Thanks for the article Tara.
July 2, 2012 at 9:20 pm
Susanna Leonard Hill
Oh no! ANOTHER social media site? %$^&*$*&%#% (that was the sound of my head exploding! :)) I will probably wait and watch on the sidelines and see what develops before getting involved. I haven’t tried Pinterest – Twitter was apparently the straw that broke my camel’s back 🙂
July 3, 2012 at 5:42 am
Julie Falatko
Can we just take a moment to celebrate the fact that someone thought we needed another social media site devoted to books and reading? (There’s also Library Thing, which I haven’t really explored yet.) I love the idea of a bunch of venture capitalists and web nerds sitting around, thinking, “The next big wave we need to capitalize upon? Books! Reading! Paper and pages!” (though I have no issue with people reading books electronically). I would love a future where the internet told people to stop randomly surfing and to go read some literature.
July 3, 2012 at 5:53 am
Alison Hertz
I hadn’t heard of Riffle until this article. Sheesh! Another way to suck up my limited writing, drawing, reading time? I have avoided Pinterest because there are not nough hours in a day for writing, blogging, facebook, and twitter. Julie makes a great point and I’m curious to see where Riffle goes, I’m just not thrilled about it. Off to build a time slowing machine…
July 3, 2012 at 12:28 pm
Anna J. Boll
I took a pass on Pinterest. Is it possible that at Riffle the “experts” will be gatekeepers to sift out some of the more hurtful, or mean reviews? I have no problem adverse reviews, just do it in a thoughtful and well-reasoned way.
July 3, 2012 at 12:39 pm
Tara Lazar
Hopefully they sift out negative reviews by people who HAVEN’T READ THE ENTIRE BOOK! I have seen this happen–someone reads 40 pages, puts it down and misunderstands the author’s intentions because of one scene. You cannot negatively review a book you have not finished, it is unfair, inaccurate, and totally misrepresents the title. I’d like to think that most readers are savvy enough to ignore a partial review, but sometimes people scan so quickly they miss the fact that THE BOOK WASN’T READ!
July 3, 2012 at 1:51 pm
Alexa
Love the cartoon!
July 3, 2012 at 10:59 pm
Tara Lazar
Thanks to my pal Andy J. Smith!
July 3, 2012 at 7:13 pm
Ellen L. Ramsey
My head has already exploded! Thanks, Tara, for your explanation. I’ll stay tuned.
July 4, 2012 at 10:55 pm
debsanswers
Reblogged this on Deb's Answers and commented:
I love goodreads and I also use fictfact for series features that are better than what goodreads has.
November 17, 2012 at 8:58 pm
Joanna
I’ve saved this post for a while now, and I wonder how Riffle is holding up. As you said, it sounds intriguing but the reality might not be.
February 13, 2013 at 11:13 am
Stacy Sties
I am not impressed at this point. Riffle is missing a lot of books, even when they have the author on file and the search is very poor. I would have hoped they would been ready for prime time by now. I love goodreads and will not be changing.
February 13, 2013 at 11:42 am
Tara Lazar
I agree. They are missing a lot of books and I’m too far into GoodReads now to switch. It’s like Google+ vs. Facebook–Google+ came out when so many people were already comfortable with FB, and it essentially does a lot of the same things, so there’s no need to switch or maintain TWO of the same thing.