Comments on: Bookish.com launches

By: Does Amazon need DRM? | I Love My Kindle

Does Amazon need DRM? | I Love My Kindle — Tue, 07 May 2013 15:47:24 +0000

[...] I wouldn’t see publisher B’s books. The publishers are trying to address that with Bookish.com. Bookish, though, isn’t going to show me independently publisher books. It’s also not [...]

By: Paging Dr. Page: your Amazon Author Central page

Paging Dr. Page: your Amazon Author Central page — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 14:37:19 +0000

[...] Bookish.com launches (three traditional publishers and others create their own answer to Amazon) [...]

By: Bufo Calvin

Bufo Calvin — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 02:04:07 +0000

Thanks for writing, kmorandi! If you click or tap Recommendations at the top of the page, it will take you here: http://www.bookish.com/recommendations You are right, though, it could be clearer.

By: kmorandi

kmorandi — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 01:52:42 +0000

Went and checked it out, but their search is way frustrating. I couldn’t even find books I knew they had! And I never did figure out how to get recommendations. They’ll have to be a lot slicker than that to get me to even think about using them.

By: becca

becca — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 18:33:03 +0000

i may be in the minority, but social reading networks don’t interest me in the slightest.

I went to the Bookish site, and tried to find other books like Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore, and it couldn’t even find that book. bah.

By: Edward Boyhan

Edward Boyhan — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 15:34:13 +0000

Bufo, if you go to the link I provided (the author’s page), there is in fact an html version, but just below that on the page is a link to the “engines of creation 2.0″, which is all of the first version from 1986 plus some more recent papers and additions. This link will take you to:
http://www.wowio.com/users/product.asp?BookId=503
which has a download pdf button on it for the v2.0 book which is the version I looked at last night..

By: Bufo Calvin

Bufo Calvin — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 13:42:13 +0000

Thanks for writing, Edward!

I’m only seeing an HTML presentation of it on the author’s website (rather than a downloadble pdf), and I’m hesitant to get a pdf from another source without being sure that it is not infringing.

I hold your recommendation of it in high esteem, so I’ll probably investigate further. It could be that those pdfs are authorized, but I may have to contact the author to find out.

By: Edward Boyhan

Edward Boyhan — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 04:16:03 +0000

“The Engines of Creation” is perhaps one of the most significant books of the latter part of the 20th century.

It’s unfortunate that it’s not available on the kindle from Amazon….well I checked through Google, and a PDF version is available from what looks like the author’s web site:
http://e-drexler.com/p/06/00/EOC_Cover.html

Best: it appears to be free — this PDF version is also available from numerous other web sites. PDF’s are nicely readable on KF’s

By: Bufo Calvin

Bufo Calvin — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 02:04:56 +0000

Thanks for writing, Ed!

Yep…the tradpubs (traditional publishers) are jumping into the pool with both feet. When we have a huge market disruption, that benefits the little guys for a while, because the big ones react more slowly. However, we are talking about companies that have been around for more than a century in some cases…so they’ve had to figure out how to survive and do well in some pretty big previous disruptions.

I do expect Bookish will get better as more data becomes available…not just more books in the database, but I’m sure it will look at which books people click in the recommendations, and use that to improve the recommendations for later users.

By: Bufo Calvin

Bufo Calvin — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 02:02:27 +0000

Thanks for writing, Harold!

Well, there really isn’t much graphical presentation of statistical data in The Transparent Society…it deals more with the impact on individuals.