The Problem with "Book Apps"

Goodreads is a classic example of a product that sounds good in theory but fails miserably in practice. Applied to a different medium (showbiz baby), the Goodreads formula actually works spectacularly well. You can see this in the success of apps like Letterboxd. Taking a closer look at each medium makes it crystal clear why one succeeds where the other fails.

Let's start with Movies. In the McLuhan sense, movies are a red hot medium. You sit back passively and let the sensory experience envelop you. They are are also experienced socially. You and all you buddies buy tickets and experience the spectacle together. Afterwards is the debrief. You throw out critiques, praise, theories, etc. The medium wants to be shared and spoken about. There is also the temporal aspect. It only takes about two hours to watch a movie. Even if you are at home, you often finish the film in one sitting. There is no analog to the experience of reading a slow book where it drags and drags for weeks. For a week or two when a new movie comes out, it crests the cultural zeitgeist. It becomes a running part of the discourse - people just want to talk about it. All of these characteristics lend themselves incredibly well to a social, Letterboxd type of experience.

Books are quite the opposite. The experience is slow, single-player, and highly disjounted. The Goodreads UX of "when did you start reading this book?", "what page are you on now?", "when did you finish this book?" is incredibly cumbersome. It will never be as clean as clicking the "watched" button next to a movie poster. It can't be. Books are a solitary experience. Yes, you might read a book as part of a book club but still the actual experience of reading is done by you and you alone. Outside of maybe the Harry Potter books when they were coming out and had all the hype, when can you honestly say that everyone was reading the same book at the same time? That just does not happen for this medium. I might be reading a book from 150 years ago - how many people on the planet are simultaneously reading that book? Not that many, certainly not enough to sustain a vibrant, social meta-discourse.

This is the difference. Apps like Letterboxd feel fun, social, topical, and cultural. This is because movies really are all those things. The experience of using Goodreads feels like volunteering for a sad and tired data entry job. It is simply a chore. I think this is the biggest mistake that "book apps" make. They try to bolt on a social experience to a medium that is, by its very nature, solitary.

This opens up an interesting line of questioning. What would a book app look like if it were built upon the understanding that reading is a single-player experience?

I am not going to answer that question here but I think it is a fruitful avenue to investigate.