MindTheBook: Crowdsourced Book Recommendations

MindTheBook: Crowdsourced Book Recommendations

Looking for a good book on a particular subject? There’s always trolling Amazon and checking out their suggestions, or browsing Borders Barnes and Noble, but now there’s a new way to add to your library: MindTheBook.
Basically, you ask a question, like, “How to make money on the internet?” and other people suggest titles. Those titles can be voted as helpful or not, and below the book listing is a link to Amazon (and a link to the Kindle version where available). It’s a neat idea, though it needs a strong userbase and lots of participation to really succeed. I’d also like to see integration to more eBookstores than just Amazon, though obviously if you find a book you’re interested in it’s not THAT hard to flip over to your bookstore of choice.

Overall the interface is very straightforward, and I like the clear-cut YES/NO votes on whether a book suggestion is on-topic. My biggest issue is that this is a standalone website. If it were integrated with Goodreads, Facebook, or another social network, I think you’d get more users, which leads to a higher volume of suggestions and questions.

I’ll be keeping an eye on this site, and hopefully it will grow and succeed! You can check out a slideshow better explaining the concept and goals behind the project below, and let us know in the comments if something like this appeals to you!

MindTheBook.com – every book answers a question

Via Lifehacker

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About the Author

Zek
Zek has been a gadget fiend for a long time, going back to their first PDA (a Palm M100). They quickly went from researching what PDA to buy to following tech news closely and keeping up with the latest and greatest stuff. They love writing about ebooks because they combine their two favorite activities; reading anything and everything, and talking about fun new tech toys. What could be better?