Slashdot Log In
An IMDb for Books
Posted by
Hemos
on Fri Mar 07, 2003 11:50 AM
from the reading-the-world dept.
from the reading-the-world dept.
darkgray writes "After years of reading books and never really knowing which books were, perhaps, the best out there, and in the meantime getting more and more impressed by sites like the Internet Movie Database, I decided to start a project of my own. I named it the Internet Book List, and now it needs people to vote on books they've read, and even more it needs dedicated people to submit books and author information. Help out Humanity: Add a Book!"
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
An IMDb for Books
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 391 comments
(Spill at 50!) | Index Only
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(1)
|
2
What About Amazon? (Score:3, Informative)
They may not have everything, but they're pretty close.
Re:What About Amazon? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.sirsonic.com/)
Erm, and you know this how?
If Amazon decides not to carry the book, *poof* it ceases to exist if we rely on it as a means of archiving records of books.
Also, if we rely on Amazon purely as a reference, I don't like the idea of the huge advantage they get on their competitors. Even if another site sells the book for cheaper, the convenience (pardon me, the conflict of interest) of mixing reference lists with sales catalogs seems a little too market-muddling for me.
Re:What About Amazon? (Score:5, Informative)
Well, no. There are lots of books on there that they don't carry. In fact, there are lots of books on there that they have NEVER carried.
The do this because they will send a request to a rare book dealer for you and then take a commission from the sale if the dealer can find it for you.
That said, I think a non-commercial DB is better...
Re:What About Amazon? (Score:4, Insightful)
Personal experience. It's rare I don't find a book I'm looking for.
If Amazon decides not to carry the book, *poof* it ceases to exist if we rely on it as a means of archiving records of books.
An excellent point.
Also, if we rely on Amazon purely as a reference, I don't like the idea of the huge advantage they get on their competitors. Even if another site sells the book for cheaper, the convenience (pardon me, the conflict of interest) of mixing reference lists with sales catalogs seems a little too market-muddling for me.
Conflict of interest how? You see this daily in many places. Video game reviews have links to purchase the game they're selling, same with books, computer hardare and almost everything else. And of course, if your purchase the product using that link the reviewer generally gets a percentage of the sale. The same goes for the grocery store. Why not get some toilet paper while you're there instead of driviing to Target and saving $.50?
Like it or not, convience is king.
Also keep in mind nobody is forced to purchase the book there, and that's exactly what I do. Use Amazon for the review and then shop around if I decide to purchase it.
Keep in mind what this person wants to do is not create a reference list but a centralized web site for reviews. If you want a reference list I would suggest The Library of Congress.
Re:What About Amazon? (Score:5, Informative)
(Last Journal: Tuesday August 31 2004, @04:53PM)
Re:What About Amazon? (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://rhorsman.vox.com/)
Or go to Bookfinder.com [bookfinder.com], a meta-search whose list of booksellers [bookfinder.com] includes ABE.
Re:What About Amazon? (Score:4, Insightful)
After using it for movies and also using IMDB.com I have always preferred IMDB.com because it has a much broader user base and offers better information. I feel like a good book site could do the same if it is able to gain enough information to get started.
Re:What About Amazon? (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.bk3.net/ | Last Journal: Monday May 31 2004, @12:50AM)
Re:What About Amazon? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What About Amazon? (Score:5, Interesting)
Amazon limits reviews to 1000 words. 1000 words isn't really that much for some reviews.
Amazon lets people review books that they clearly haven't read (because they aren't even available yet).
And maybe you aren't entirely comfortable with the fact that when you submit a review to Amazon "you grant Amazon.com and its affiliates a nonexclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable right to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, and display such content throughout the world in any media."
Business Plan??? (Score:4, Funny)
(http://vivation-professional.com/)
Do you have a business plan that will anticipate and manage this growth. I hope so.
Best of luck and success to you.
Planet P Blog [planetp.cc]
Obvious question (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://archive.org/)
Here is how (Score:4, Informative)
5. How do I help out with the project?
We'd love to get more people to help out with adding books and authors, so mail us at submission@iblist.com asking to become an administrator. We will contact you as soon as we can.
Re:Here is how (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://pauljessup.blogspot.com/)
Re:I think ... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Call me Ishmael" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." - Jane Austin, Pride & Prejudice.
"There was only one catch and that was Catch-22" - Joseph Heller, Catch-22.
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" - Charles Dickens, A Tale of two Cities.
""When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less." - Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
5 perfectly good memorable lines, without lots of context.
Copyrights (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://vollerama.com/)
It's a sterling idea, it's just that some publishers might get aggrieved when they see information on their publications being held by a third party.
Re:Copyrights (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://slashdot.org/)
How could they possibly have a legal right to complain? How is someone infringing on copyrights by simply acknowledging the existence of a published work? If it's published, it's implied that it was offered for Public Consumption, and referencing the author and title of a particular book should be considered a non-copyrightable fact.
Besides, there are already publically-accessable book lists in many places, on and off line. Amazon has already been cited, but how about your local library? Or the Library of Congress? Do libraries need to get permission to put books in their card catalog?
I'm curious if he recognized how much bandwidth can be eaten up by a project like this. Or if he's looked to see is Amazon has a patent on this. It seems right up their alley...
Free is better (Score:4, Insightful)
this isn't free yet, AFAIK (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://surlygeek.com/ | Last Journal: Wednesday August 30 2006, @05:44PM)
So what rights do I have with this data? I was kinda burned when FireFly sold all my record reviews (along with those by hundreds of other users). CDDB being sold to (and locked up [com.com] by) Escient [escient.com] is a better example of this phenomenon. (For those who arrived late, freedb [freedb.org] is an open source fork of CDDB, which is now called GraceNote [cddb.com]).
No more submissions from me until someone tells me what happens to my work. I don't mind someone like Jon Katz quoting my /. posts, but I'm not willing to have my work turned into proprietary data.
Good project tho; I'm surprised it took this long to happen.
How far back are we talking? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.schnapple.com/)
Fiction, Nonfiction, both?
What about textbooks? Do we want those too?
How about programming books? Manuals? At what stage of public availability do we want to consider? If it's on a shelf at Barnes & Noble that's one thing, but are we talking Congressional Review here?
Suggest some boundaries!
Re:How far back are we talking? (Score:4, Funny)
(http://www.dynamicmedical.ca/)
Re:How far back are we talking? (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.pvv.ntnu.no/~oyving/)
At least it's a start.
Internet Literature Database (Score:3, Interesting)
Suggestions (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://www.coldcity.com/)
There is already a good one. (Score:5, Informative)
A Great Idea (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://slashdot.org/~Shadow%20Wrought/journal | Last Journal: Saturday November 17, @12:05PM)
I would much rather research a book or series without being unindated with adds and guesses as to what I want, and sweaters randomly dropping down out of a Target tab.
I look forward to submitting.
Re:A Great Idea (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.targotennisberg.org/)
In order for this site to be taken seriously and comparable to Amazon, it needs millions of titles, much more features, and the ability to survive slashdot effect. This presumes a rather powerful database, quite a bit of storage and bandwidth. The current amateurish system would never survive this, it needs some serious full time staff to keep it running.
And there is no way this would be free unless the original poster is a philantropic millionaire.
Re:A Great Idea (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://slashdot.org/)
I remember when the IMDB was a collection of huge text files passed around on USENET. Next, it was converted into DOS-based database application. The app and a few hundred megabytes were passed around the 'net. Once the WWW thing caught on, it went to the web. I don't know if there was ever a time it was on the web but not the pimped commercial version it currently is.
Since it was a community effort, I felt it worthwhile to add my own contributions. I haven't felt compelled to contribute (can you?) to the current commercial incarnation, as it's not Free anymore.
My biggest fear is that such a project will sell out like CDDB and IMDB did, riding on the backs of those who selflessly contributed content.
Database Append Question (Score:3, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Wednesday December 12, @12:42PM)
How I'd like to see this work (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh boy (Score:3, Informative)
(http://home.cogeco.ca/~storage/index.html | Last Journal: Thursday March 20 2003, @09:33AM)
Let's hope it's not the IMDb for books... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.ubasics.com/adam | Last Journal: Wednesday August 06 2003, @01:01PM)
The sheer volume of material.
There are far more books now than movies, and you had better start considering how you are going to apply categories and searching to it. The sheer volume also means that most of the good information is only going to reside in 'popular' books, while the rest, if it is ever added, is going to be dilute and useless.
I wish you luck in your endeaver, I'm certian others will aid you in its progress. I can't see it becoming very popular unless you somehow leverage existing (possibly for-pay) data sources, such as Amazon, and that path requires you to take your site to a proprietary level (as CDDB and IMDb did), which will upset those who freely added material in the 'early' days.
-Adam
free database? (Score:3, Insightful)
I am a strong supporter of FREE data the way that freedb.org gives away their database. I think that is the featrue that will make this database worthwhile. Otherwise I agree that Amazon seems to be doing a pretty good job.
Something I've been looking for... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd also like to see something on the order for computer and video game software. Again, everything tied to the ISBN with some necessary database details to file in.
BookCrossing (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.teslatestament.com/ | Last Journal: Sunday March 23 2003, @12:34PM)
For what is worth, there is a similar effort out there called Book Crossing [bookcrossing.com]. Essentially, you put books in circulation by leaving them in cafés or other public places, for people to find and comment on. I put a couple of books (my most recent one today!) out. Anyway, this creates a virtual roaming library that now has global reach.
Check out their web site; Book Crossing has some neat ideas that could be applied to this project.
Cheers!
EGood idea but not quite IMDB (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://photos.meta-verse.net/)
The main think the IMDB has over a similar book site is the interconnectedness of movies. With actors often appearing in more than one movie, the IMDB is just as much a database for actors, crew, writers, producers and composers as it is for movies.
With books all you can really index are the titles and the authors - and crossovers are rare.
You could still list the characters appearing in a book but due to the majority being one of appearances it's usefulness is definately restricted.
No playing six degrees with books. and no thinking "I really like that character. What else have they been in?"
All in all it's a nice idea but I can't see it reaching the same level of usefullness of IMDB.
Free labor again? (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.io.com/~snewton/)
Trivia and Goofs (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://www.morinfami...categories/Geek.html | Last Journal: Tuesday March 01 2005, @02:47PM)
We could even make stuff up, like, "Reportedly Douglas Adams was enjoying a tuna sandwich with pickles when the idea for 'So Long and thanks for all the Fish' struck him."
Major time waster and brain filler : Turn on the tv. Find movie. Look movie up. Read Trivia, Goofs, Memorable Quotes, Alternate Versions, and Movie Connections in that order. On Movie Connections, click another movie that looks interesting. Repeat. My wife wonders why I'm always saying I'm going to go pick up my office but it takes days.
need access to old book reviews (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://www.imaginary...programmer/index.php)
Books, Ontologies and Shared Dictionaries [idiotprogrammer.com]
Interestingly, many of the book reviews from the major sites (nytimes, ny review of books) charge for access to archived articles. When writing my longish longish essay on Gao Xingjian's novel Soul Mountain [imaginaryplanet.net], I had to go through hoops to figure out how to reach cached copies of these articles. Although dozens (if not hundreds) of people had reviewed this same book, only a handful were publicly accessible.
Unfortunately, this sort of project would be successful if the major book publications agree to open their content. i would argue that access to old movie reviews (like Roger Ebert, etc) on imdb hasn't hurt the respective publications. Perhaps if the project gains enough momentum, the major publications will see value in providing their content for free.
I hope this project succeeds (and more importantly finds funding), but I have to wonder what is so wrong with depending on newsgroups (easily accessible from google groups) to find reviews. It's free, easy and threaded, so conceivably people could reply to a thread on a specific book.
Robert Nagle
Missing the point guys... (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Friday May 02 2003, @12:35PM)
Amazon is only interested in marketing books so people will buy them. They aren't going to carry information about things they can't sell.
The Library of Congress will carry information about the book, but no commentary or reviews... and even they won't store data on books that may be centuries old, or only available outside the United States.
As far as legal concerns... remember that little principle called "Fair Use" that all the big companies want to take away from us? Printing a self-compiled catalog of book titles, even with small excerpts, should be covered under fair use. Reviews of said titles should be 1st amendment. Of course, IANAL.
This is a great idea!
/. Corrputing Book Database already? (Score:5, Interesting)
The Assayer already online book information source (Score:3, Informative)
lots of work (Score:3, Insightful)