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 p
10 Comments on Riffle: “The Pinterest of Book Discovery” or “GoodReads 2.0″ or Not?, last added: 7/5/2012Display Comments Add a Comment
Thanks for the article Tara.
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 
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.
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…
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.
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!
Love the cartoon!
My head has already exploded! Thanks, Tara, for your explanation. I’ll stay tuned.
Thanks to my pal Andy J. Smith!
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.