Shelfari is a social media website where a community of book readers is encouraged to discuss their books with friends and other users on the network. Users of Shelfari build their own bookshelves. It was the first social media site which focused on the books and is still bringing the readers from all around the globe on one platform. Shelfari is the place for the book lovers where they can catalog their books while socializing with other book readers. Shelfari makes it easy for book lovers by letting them catalog and organize the books in the Shelfari book shelf. It’s easy to use Shelfari and there are no limitations on the number of books you read or add to your book shelf.

Foundation of Shelfari

Shelfari was founded by three people who are very experienced in creating consumer products and have a great love of books. Josh Hug, who was working as the Director of Devices at Real Networks, Kevin Beukelman, the Chief Architect who was also working for Real Networks and Mark Williamson, who is currently on the Board of Directors and was working in product management and marketing at Real Networks.

Purpose of Shelfari

Basically the purpose of Shelfari was to bring people who love books closer to each other. Where the internet has made so many changes in the lives of human beings it’s also driven them away from reading books and other paper media. These days, it is not viable for people to have discussions about books and novels because they either don’t read as much or they do not have time to get together and socialize about their interests. Shelfari has revived that excitement in people who like to read. It has brought back the social side of books through discussions even when friends are far away. Shelfari not only allows you to interact with old friends but also gives you an opportunity to communicate and share your thoughts and books with new people.

Shelfari helps its users make groups in which they can interact and share books that reflect their common interests. They can participate in discussion forums and view introductory pages for different categories of books. Some of the features that highlight the use of Shelfari are:

Personalized book shelves

Shelfari allows its users to create personalized book shelves where they can list the books they own and the books that they want to read. This book shelf portrays their book collection in a physical way. Users can browse libraries in their network and see which friends have books in common.

Social interaction

There is also a social interaction feature that allows users to make new friends with common interests. Each book on your shelf tells you how many other users have the same book. If there is a discussion taking place about that book you can easily participate. This helps users interact with each other and share their thoughts while hearing other users’ opinion.

Book discovery

By using Shelfari, people can find and recommend new books to each other. Users are able to look on the shelves of users in order to discover new books and see what users with similar interests are reading. Shelfari users can enjoy the recommendations that are given by their friends and others.

Shelfari also offers the opportunity to rate books and user booklists. Users can join different reader groups and put their book shelf on Facebook or MySpace.

Shelfari gives people the opportunity to revive the habit of reading by adding many new and interesting features. You can explore and communicate with other users and socialize with new as well as old friends.

REFERENCES

1. www.shelfari.com/Tastemakers/Press/10-11-06.aspx
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelfari
3. http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/shelfari/
4. http://raghavraj.wordpress.com/2007/08/29/shelfari-worlds-first-social-media-site-for-books/
5. http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-9692957-2.html

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