Today, Karin’s Book Nook would like to welcome Dawid Piaskowski, Founder of BookLikes to the blog. I first found BookLikes when they posted a Valentine’s Day Infographic (see below). I decided to play around with the site to see how it compared to Goodreads and LibraryThing so I imported my Goodreads library. I had trouble so I emailed the support address and received help immediately. I haven’t had a chance to explore it very much, but what I can say from my limited experience is:
1) The site is a little too busy for me. This is one reason I left Shelfari because it was so graphics based.
2) I don’t know how I feel about having the bookstore links right on the front page.
3) There doesn’t seem to be a group option for book discussion.
4) There isn’t an option to create widgets to display your books on blogs.
5) The mobile app isn’t easy to find. It doesn’t show up in the Apple App Store. I’ll update this post if I find it. I’ve emailed Dawid about it.
HERE IS SOMETHING I DO REALLY LIKE:
BookLikes has an option to display books by series. Really handy when you are looking for reading order or just to make sure you haven’t missed one.
So, the jury is still out for me. You guys go and make your own decision. This might be the perfect choice for you. You never know until you try.
Now, here is Dawid.
How to find your way through a jungle of books and not to miss a really good one? BookLikes – the best way to discover new books.
As avid readers we were looking for a complete service which lets you discover new books, collect them and meet other people with the same reading taste. Other book-social platforms didn’t meet our expectations, we wanted something more personalized, compact and pretty – just one place to rule them all (books of course) and letting you discover new books in various ways.
So we decided to create it by ourselves – that’s how BookLikes began.
Being a book lover isn’t easy though very enjoyable especially now when we can take advantage of books in their multi forms. But that can be both an asset and an obstacle. Nowadays when we witness immensity of traditional books, audio versions and e-books the questions popped up how to keep them all together in one place, share with others and what’s more important how to find next great read?
From these very questions and crave for books, of course, BookLikes emerged. We wanted to create a complete service for all kinds of readers with different reading tastes but one passion – books. Thanks to personalized e-shelves book lovers can keep all their reads in one place and share them with their friends at once.
We all peep at our friends’ bookshelves to see what they are or were reading and to find some book-to-read inspirations. But we wanted to make the book discovery easier, faster and more exciting. At BookLikes you can still view your friends’ e-shelves (with Facebook and Twitter integration) or browse book categories but, additionally, you get personalized book recommendations which take into consideration multiple individual factors, such as reader’s reading preferences, book categories, individual book ratings and social activity in order to find books perfectly tailored to each and every reader’s taste.
BookLikes is a kind of road sign for book lovers which offers a huge amount of book titles, individual book recommendations, well organized book catalog, e-shelves, various online booksellers with special book offers and growing gathering of people who love to read. We’re still developing, listening to our users and adding new features and … new languages!
We’re launching German version of service – BookLikes.de – today and we’re hoping that BookLikes will go global and show the right way to discover new books to all book lovers!
P.S. Don’t worry – BookLikes will stay free as it is now.
Dawid Piaskowski (BookLikes Founder)
Check out the video.
Here is the Valentine’s Day Infographic.
