LibraryThing on the Facebook Platform

I've been thinking a lot about our expansion of LibraryThing to the Facebook platform but I wanted to open the door to suggestions/visions/use cases/helpful thoughts/arguments/etc related to how LibraryThing could best integrate with Facebook.

There's a lot of low hanging fruit here (to cop a phrase Tim likes). We can do all the normal integration with LT that the you've seen on countless FB apps. Bringing together your LT-data and the "Facebook Social Graph" is not really a challenge. What's interesting is how we can make our app different and better than others by leveraging our high quality data and unique community.

Of course it's very important that existing LibraryThing members find our Facebook application useful/interesting/fun/engaging but there's also a big opportunity to get booklovers and catalogers who don't know about LT to come out of the woodwork. Most of the top FB applications are very quick, casual and frankly contain very little substance. Obviously that's not the right approach for LibraryThing but I'm thinking a lot about how our app could be game-like and fun for the uninitiated, without failing to show off what LT is about, bringing in new members and more high quality data.

In my head I see the application starting off on the lighter side (useful to non-LT members and members alike) and moving the user progressively closer to creating (or linking to) an LT account and interacting with more deeply integrated parts of the application. If you're not a member it should still be an engaging experience and if you are you should be able to connect your LT account and start right away with the richer parts of the application.

Some questions to get you started...

1) Would you use an LT/Facebook app?

2) What would such an app need to have *at a minimum*?

3) How important is a "full featured" app? (meaning it replicates much of what you can do on LT)

4) An LT/Facebook app is interesting but if it could do ______ I would use it all the time.

Also please tell us about any stand out to applications you use that you think we should look at for inspiration.

Thanks in advance for your input.

-Mike (mike@librarything.com)

1. Yes, I'd use an LT Facebook app.

2. It doesn't really need to have anything; even if it did almost nothing, I would send out invitations as a useful way to inform my friends (and mere acquaintances) about LT.

3. Not at all important. That's what LT is for.

4. I really want it to tell me what my friends have read recently. If it did this, I would use it frequently to encourage them to do the same. However, what I'm NOT interested in is currently-reading only, which seems to be the way LT is going. Currently-reading is too fleeting and requires that people update almost continuously, which doesn't seem feasible.

I think the Flixster application is a good model, because it encourages activity as soon as you go there by offering a list of top movies to rate and then comparing your ratings to your friends.

Hey, Zoe, I'm going to press you. What does #2 mean? What's necessary—how about if it it didn't allow you to add, update or even see books on FB. What if it only posted notices on your feed when you reviewed stuff, or whatever?

Yeah, that would be enough that I'd use it. It would still serve the purpose of showing my friends what LT was about. I'm not saying that would be the ideal application, but I'd use it.

There's an interesting side question to that. Should we make something half-assed and then add to it—to add ass to it?—or should we try for bigger. The worry is that if we do something half-assed, some people take a look at it, determine it's not as good as others, and never look again.

1. Absolutely.

2. Post feed stories when I review books, add books, and possibly start/finish books. Hopefully allow me to pick which of those I want to be part of the feed. Display covers, and link back to the book/author/review pages.

3. Not important. I'd still come here to do everything.

4. I'd want it to be straight-forward enough that my friends would add and use it, so I could see what they were currently/recently reading.

1) Would you use an LT/Facebook app?

Yes. I already use the little app that someone else wrote a long time ago.

2) What would such an app need to have *at a minimum*?

I'd like to have something that looks like the blog widget, with pictures of covers. Automatic updating when my LT catalogue updates (the old app needs to be manually updated. Make it post on my Wall that "Jane acquired a new book: {insert title here} or Jane rated/reviewed {insert title here}

3) How important is a "full featured" app? (meaning it replicates much of what you can do on LT)

not at all. If I want to do what LT does, I will go to LT. I just want to brag to my facebook friends what cool books I'm reading (or how badly I've gone over to the geek zone).

4) An LT/Facebook app is interesting but if it could do ______ I would use it all the time.

see 2 & 3 above.

Should we make something half-assed and then add to it—to add ass to it?—or should we try for bigger.

I guess the determining factor here is how much time the initial ass would take. If it's going to be a month, sure. If it's going to be two more years, don't bother.

I agree with fyrefly that it would be good if we could choose what got displayed in our feeds. I may not want everyone knowing that I loved Twilight.

edit: and I also agree that it should be simple enough that my friends will use it. If they wanted hardcore cataloguing capabilities, they'd already be using LT.

3&4>
Yes, I would use that too. I am not a very active facebooker, and adding such a "librarything activity" feed might well encourage me to do things like add "read" dates here on LibraryThing.

5>
standard agile advice would be probably to release, if not heavily publicise, as soon as it does something useful and not wait until it is out of Beta...

I'd really advise against half-assed -- I've seen a lot of backlash against half-assed app overload from my fb friends lately. People posting "nothing personal, but, I'm now refusing app requests" notes, declaring themselves fans of refusing apps, grumbling about yet again going through the whole rigamarole of giving things access to your data only to find that it's yet another thing that posts a message and asks you to bug your friends without doing anything else... and the thing is, once those people have hit "block this application", you aren't getting them back with added features.

Nor do I think something that just lets you list your current read is going to stand out from the million and three others that already do just that.

On the other hand, I'm not really sure what you mean by full-featured. Cataloging? I always have an LT tab open in the same browser window. Ratings? Reviews? (Let's pretend I do much of those things)... ditto. Combining and CK-related stuff, which really is most of what I do on LT, don't make sense on an external site; they're as much about LT itself as about my own library. But something (note: no ideas here!) that really captured the feeling of LT fun? Then I'd jump on it.

I'm honestly not sure if I'd use an LT app or not; I'm more likely to use it than any of the other book apps, but I'm not sure if I want such a thing at all.

So I guess I'm saying that I'm in a sort of "meh" place with the whole thing -- I'd hate half-assed (and would worry that it makes LT look bad to people who don't know it), but I'm sort of at a loss about what fully-assed might look like.

On an additional ten minutes of thought, basically what I want is my "recent activity" box from my profile to update to my facebook feed.

But it'd be nice if it had some integration such that my friends could be like "oh, awesome, I want that too" and easily start doing it. How easy that would be to do, I don't know.

RE post 8: Do you you mean it should that the app should be simple enough that it will draw your non-LT using friends to start using LT (since you said you don't care if the app itself doesn't have cataloging capabilities)?

I'm not that familiar with FB (I've looked into it, but am not a member), but here are my thoughts:
1) no, because I am not on FB, but but I recognize how important this is for many LT members and how important it is for getting the word out about LT. I think a lot of people would use it. And, who knows: I might get dragged into FB eventually, and if so, I would almost definitely use it.
2) I would also have envisioned something like the blog widget, definitely with covers, and also something that puts updates in people's feed/wall,* as others describe above. I think, though, that it's important that users be able to customize what shows up there by tags, and by Collections, when this gets implemented (and perhaps by other fields or criteria as well). It's especially important that the app is connected to Collections (even if that has to be added later, once Collections are launched - I'm not sure which comes first here). *{E.g. updates for recently added - to catalog or to collection, recently reviewed, recently rated, maybe recently tagged, recently joined groups, etc. - IF there were some options to decide what to display. Book data is the core, so I'd focus on that. Things like adding info to Local, or adding CK data, don't seem to me worth keeping tabs on, but maybe that's just me.}
Should the app also include some way to invite FB friends either to see the app, or to join LT, or to check out one's LT catalog/profile (or all of the above)?

3) don't know. I would think, like others, that it's not that important. But not being that familiar with FB, I'll leave this question to others.

4) no opinion.

P.S. I'd be curious to see screen-shots of what the current 3rd-party app looks like, and what competitor apps look like.

Sorry, let me clarify: It's not that I don't care whether the app has cataloguing capabilities, it's just that I'd still use it even if it didn't. Ideally, it would include cataloguing capabilities so that my friends would be able to get into LT through facebook, but I'd still use the app regardless.

10>"grumbling about yet again going through the whole rigamarole of giving things access to your data only to find that it's yet another thing that posts a message and asks you to bug your friends without doing anything else..."

If an app asks for those scary permissions without any indication of what it does, of why I should consider trusting it at all I will indeed almost invariably say no. I don't know the facebook platform at all - is it possible to create an app that does not need the "click me and I own you" permissions?

Btw you might want to post a link to this thread, or repost, in the Facebook group here: http://www.librarything.com/groups/facebookusers

15> Thanks, doing it.

Enjoying mulling over peoples responses so far.

I feel like my interpretation of a "half-assed" app (which could be developed rather rapidly) would almost completely satisfy the requirements of everyone who's posted. But we'll see.

Peace, Mike

I'm not on Facebook and I don't know much about it, so this might be a totally off the wall idea. Would it be feasible to use for people to show LT Local events that they have marked as interesting? Sort of along the lines of telling your friends about the events.

17> Yeah you can manually or automatically post different types of content to you or your friend's feeds and/or send notifications. It's a very flexible system. -Mike (mike@librarything.com)

I use LibraryThing through LibraryThing; a Facebook app would mostly be useful for me to advertise my LibraryThing to my friends on Facebook. The most useful feature for me would be to post notifications, e.g.: "Max Kaehn has finished reading Heroes Die, and reviewed it *here*." (where *here*) is a hyperlink to the review. (I tend to write a review as part of setting the "finish date" field, so it would be handy to have that be part of the "finished this book" notification.)

Mike, what exactly would you consider a half-ass app?

I'm fairly new to facebook and don't use it much now, but I would definitely use an app if it existed. At a minimum, I would like it to be able to do what the widgets can do now; e.g., random book display, recent books, and tag cloud. If it pushes out to friends what I just finished adding, reading, or reviewing, that would be a nice-to-have. I wouldn't add books from there, though; I add books when I'm on LT for something else, which is daily. :)

20> I just meant that what I have in mind as a minimal feature-set will give people more than they're asking for here. -Mike (mike@librarything.com)

I do think your question led to a certain kind of answer: you asked what was the minimum we'd consider acceptable, but I'm sure most people would *like* more than what they listed as a minimum.

Sorry to be a noodge, Mike, but I'm going to restate Zoe's question -- she's said that she wants an LT app, whereas I'm pretty uncertain unless it was something that really stood out from the many other app; we're coming from different sides of the question, but it sounds to me like we're both pretty unclear on just what you have in mind. Can you tell us what *you* would consider a minimal feature set for release? As opposed to a, umm, fully assed one?

I'm purposely being vague because I'm still pondering the whole thing in a pretty general way.

I guess I think of the minimal feature-set is hitting most of the major integration points in the Facebook platform. See Anatomy of a Facebook App

I see our app as being very feed-centric. The challenge is everyone has different ways they're going to want to initiate posting 'stories' to their feeds (and their friends' feeds). Luckily Facebook provides a very flexible system for this. We can do it all without much effort. The challenge is tooling it to work the way people expect it to with the least amount of preference tweaking and without making users feel spammy.

Another important integration point will be Profile boxes so we can show our books on Facebook.

Although I have a bunch of ideas I'm really unsure what should live on the canvas pages, the application tab, the application info section, requests (in descending order of importance).

Mike (mike@librarything.com)

1) Would you use an LT/Facebook app?

Yes

2) What would such an app need to have *at a minimum*?

Ability for someone to search my library.

Feeds would be nice if given the ability to choose what is and what is not "fed". Personally I don't care to advertise every book I add to my library, but if there was a y/n in LibraryThing so I could choose y/n, that'd be nice. I do think regardless if adds are included in Feeds, it needs to somehow combine multiple adds into one item. I think - and could be very wrong - that most people add a few books at a time to LibraryThing whether because they wait until they have a mini-stack or because it is impossible to just acquire one book at a time :-). If you added 10 books or worse, were just starting to catalog on LibraryThing and added 50 or more at one time, the feed would be incredibly obnoxious. Not sure if it is part of Fbook's overall feed programming or specific to Friends, but I tend to let requests build up before dealing with them and I like that that is a single line. Wish you could delete it by hitting delete once as opposed to for each new "friend", but whatever.

Reviews would be a good feed item although even there, it'd be nice to have a y/n on the LibraryThing side.

Re: Y/N - I think the default should be no, but that anyone can change their overall default to yes. For those (like me) not wishing to share quite so much, I should be able to switch individual items to yes (reverse ability for those inclined to share all).

I do not think that Talk should be part of any Feed, but if you give me that Y/N feature, I won't really care :-).

3) How important is a "full featured" app? (meaning it replicates much of what you can do on LT)

I don't see any reason why someone should need to add books, tag them, etc. while in Fbook. If you can get on Fbook and use the application, you can presumably log into LibraryThing directly. Same goes for Talk.

One Fbook like feature that might make some people happy and interest current non-users would be a LibraryThing version of "People you may know" that would propose you add as friends fellow LibraryThingers on Fbook that have similar libraries. I have no idea if Fbook allows outside applications to do that sort of thing and I have no opinion on how many like books someone should have. One issue with this and any part of an fbook application is that many users here do not use their names. On fbook most people use their names. Using the application will tie those together. Obviously it is a choice people make (and I think would be more palatable if there is no link from LibraryThing to a person's profile page), but the idea of my proposed feature might be a negative to those people.

4) An LT/Facebook app is interesting but if it could do ______ I would use it all the time.

Hmm, I'm not sure of anything that I'd "use". I'd like to have the above on my profile, but none of it requires action on my part when logged into fbook (the search would be an action my friends would be able to take). Not sure how you are defining use.

I think we might want to consider a half-assed app as not involving that "send this to all your friends" capability. That is, do we want to push out a half-assed app to people who aren't LT members? Unless we replicate all of LT in that app, we'd be pushing out something of only limited interest to them--they'd have to join LT to really use it, unless they wanted to have an app just for tracking their LT friends.

Whatever we do, we need a help people migrate off of other FB solutions. But that's a separate issue, I think.

The other big win is, I think, really making LT local work for us. Facebook is, after all, fully local. But that's a somewhat separate issue.

I'm with slothman: I use LibraryThing through LibraryThing; a Facebook app would mostly be useful for me to advertise my LibraryThing to my friends on Facebook.

Currently, I already use My LibraryThing. The main improvements over that one would be cover display; being able to show only books with a certain tag, instead of always showing all the most recently added, and maybe the addition of some LT Local features.

If I wanted to do any additional cataloging/reviewing/editing, it would never occur to me to do it through Facebook - I would open LT. Facebook would only only be for display purposes. Granted, I probably have an LT tab open for close to twice the time I might have a Facebook tab open - I simply don't use Facebook all that much.

If the goal is to get people who aren't us to use the app and/or LT, I think the ability to catalogue from FB is crucial.

I would disagree with 30 only because I can't imagine it not being clunky and slow. I see a Fbook application as advertising for LibraryThing as well as a service to LibraryThing users.

I have no objection to being able to catalogue directly, just worried that if it is clunky/slow it will turn off potential new users rather than get them hooked.

I came to LT because of Facebooks Visual Bookshelf app, which had at one time the ability to pull in your LT library.

As the Visual Bookshelf is just not good enough, and all my library was not coming in when I had used Bookpedia, which is great for your sole library that you don't interact with a community, finding LT was pretty great.

I would want LT to emulate all that Visual Bookshelf does. Tells people what I am currently reading in my profile. Updates status of a book that I just finish, and also the rating I give it, and my review of it.

It would be great it I see another LT'er reading a book and I click on it and have a LT screen open up with my LT parameters, so I could say, yeah, add that book that my friend just status'd to my LT library.

1) Would you use an LT/Facebook app?
Absolutely. I'm using visual bookshelf now, because it seems disingenous not to have books on my profile when it's such a big part of who I am, but I feel a bit disloyal to LT in doing so. Not to mention it's a pain to have to enter information twice!
2) What would such an app need to have *at a minimum*?
At a minimum, allow me to display 3-5 books selected from currently reading, recently reviewed, or by tag, along with a link to my profile and/or library.
Beyond that, it would be nice – in order of preference – to be able to display several of the above simultaneously, add books from other people's profiles, choose (whether or not) to post updates on when I add/review/rate a book, compare libraries (or a specific rating) with other facebook LTers, see recommendations...

3) How important is a "full featured" app? (meaning it replicates much of what you can do on LT)
Not very. I'm mostly interested in a Facebook app being the public face of my LT account. I'd almost rather come to the LT site to add books, edit my library, etc., so a simple link back here should do.

4) An LT/Facebook app is interesting but if it could have automatically updating displays of currently reading, recently reviewed, and recently added to my wishlist (in an ideal world!) I would use it all the time.

ETA: I'd suggest you look at the Visual Bookshelf application, simply because that seems to be the competition...so you'd probably want to do at least as much as they do. Also, iLike, which is surprisingly popular.

1) Would you use an LT/Facebook app?
Yes! Yes! Yes! I already use a user-written LT app that really only pulls a list of your books off LT to display on your profile (and doesn't live update) - but it's better than nothing. I would absolutely LOVE an official LT facebook app.

2) What would such an app need to have *at a minimum*?
Ability to see the most recent books I have added, reviewed or rated, with covers and links back to the work page. Links back to my profile. I'd like it to look like a 'mini' version of the home page, if possible - although not that many modules.

3) How important is a "full featured" app? (meaning it replicates much of what you can do on LT)
Hm, I'm not sure it needs to replicate LT. I see it as more of a window through which my friends can look if they want to, and maybe be enticed explore LT further on the LT site.

4) An LT/Facebook app is interesting but if it could do ______ I would use it all the time.
1. As noted in #2.
2. It would also be nice to see a list of FB friends who have LT accounts.
3. Encourage non-LT users to add LT.

Also please tell us about any stand out to applications you use that you think we should look at for inspiration.
I'd suggest you look at the Movies application, not so much because of their content (please don't emulate that), but because of how they handle the account thing. When you add the Movies app, you are asked to create an account on an external website (Flixter), which you then authorise to update your Movies data and vice versa. There may well be security issues associated with that and I am sure you will look into them, but from an end user perspective it means that actions I take in the application on facebook are reflected on the external website and vice versa.

I'm mostly in agreement with most of the posts above, all I'd really want is a feed of my recent activity (books added, rated, reviewed, read). I'll just add that it would be nice to be able to add a book from a friend's feed to my Wishlist collection. For anything else I'd be going to LibraryThing itself.

Hmmm... maybe the ability to add a book to a friend's "Suggested Books" collection. (If there was such a thing, and with the appropriate restrictions - friends only, of course, so no spammers allowed. That's something that could also be added to LT itself.)

I really like the idea of adding a book to a friend's Suggested Books collection, as long as people who wanted to could disable that collection.

I am a kind of reluctant-but-active user of facebook? And I am also kind of a closet luddite, so my input might not be that helpful, but here it is:

1.) I would absolutely use an LT Facebook app. Right now I'm using the uniformly awful weRead thing solely to post a note that I am reading or have read XYZ Book, and I'd much rather use something LT-based for that purpose.

2.) It would be great if it could pull from the date fields in LT to post notes to my feed automatically or to in some way allow me to pull that information without re-entering it. What I'd also want to be able to do is to add borrowed books that I'm reading without having to add them to my LT library. (I have less than no interest in creating a separate collection to catalog these.) It would be great for it to have a click-through capability that would take interested friends to my profile/library, too, but I think that's all I'd need to be happy. Someone mentioned local event sharing, which I think would be cool too - I might use something like that if it existed.

3.) It's not important to me that it do much more than tell people what I'm reading. (I don't think I'd even want to tell people what I'm acquiring or reviewing.)

4.) I don't have a separate answer for this. I'm a little terrified of the idea that I might do anything LT-related *more* than I already do.

>37 upstairsgirl: I'm a little terrified of the idea that I might do anything LT-related *more* than I already do.

Oh...yes...speaking of which, maybe Tim&Co could arrange to have the day Collections are rolled out declared an international bank holiday?
I'm definitely going to need the extra time off to play with it!

Lots of great input. Has anyone thought at all about this from the perspective of a non-LT member? My concern is that if it's only useful to members it won't help us grow at all and may give us a bad reputation on Facebook.

By the way, do people want LibraryThing to be able to manually or automatically update your status? We could provide options for keeping LT and FB status's in sync (2 way or 1 way)? The challenge is having this work in a non spammy way.

34> Linking your LibraryThing account and Facebook will absolutely be part of our app. Otherwise lots of interesting possibilities are lost and you end up with the same information in two places. There aren't any new security risks introduced by this (Facebook never sees your LT password, etc). The only privacy concern is that you're sharing your Facebook data w/ LibraryThing (or any app that you authorize).

-Mike (mike@librarything.com)

>39 ltmike:

We'd have to figure out whether private libraries could play. I think not. We haven't instituted a "show to my friends" feature. It's just very complicated.

Ah, I wasn't considering private libraries. I imagine these members are used to not being able to use every feature due to their private status? -Mike

I would definitely use the FB app if I could share recently read books with (selected) FB friends. My library is private, however. And Mike, I actually do expect to be able to use this feature (but I'd never demand it, of course)

If the app included a catalogue view. I could see a use for this app as a window into my catalogue, provided I can control what exactly is shared. I.e. only work-derived data — green data — or 'no tags'. I would like the option to not reveal the username either.

Book-by-book privacy would be handled by collections and who to share with by the FB privacy settings.

ETA: I really like this 'green data' idea; I would open my catalogue here if this semi-private option was available. It also seems reasonably possible to code.

Perhaps a good "role model" could be the iLike application for music interests. It provides very simple means for highlighting a favorite item (song, artist) on your profile -- along with personal comments -- and also "dedicate" a song to a friend.

That analogy could work well for books from a person's LibraryThing account.

FB has seen a recent uptick for local communities, extended families, organizations, etc. The localized features of LT would be great to integrate there -- and in the other direction, it could help push the use of groups on LT.

Has anyone thought at all about this from the perspective of a non-LT member?

Yes, that's why I kept emphasizing that asking us for the minimum we would use would lead to a skewed perception.

For a non-LT member, adding books through FB is critical. For someone who already uses LT, it's obviously not necessary at all.

44> I guess, also being able to join from FB would be crucial too?

>45 rsterling: I think it would actually be preferable if people could use the LT facebook app without being forced to sign up for LT. Not sure how feasible that would be, though.

#46 Two-hundred book limit?

46>

How does that help LT?

39 said "...By the way, do people want LibraryThing to be able to manually or automatically update your status? We could provide options for keeping LT and FB status's in sync (2 way or 1 way)? The challenge is having this work in a non spammy way. ..."

I would not want LibraryThing to ever change my status.

>48 lorax: Most obviously, they could stick some ads on the Facebook app.

But I expect--and hope--that the Facebook app won't be a full version of LT, and that people who want more will eventually go to the site itself.

LT can be overwhelming in its complexity, and I think that's a turn-off for a lot of people. Rather than dismissing those people out of hand as not "the right sort" for LT, it seems better to give them a stripped-down version that can make money independently of the main site.

I would suggest that the Facebook version focus more on what people are reading and what they think about their books than on presenting a complete and detailed catalogue of what people own. The key fields are rating, review, tags, Collections, and--I would argue--reading dates. I don't think a Facebook app needs to allow editing of or even show most of the bibliographic fields--languages, publication, Dewey/LC classification, other authors, etc. Facebook is about the individual, so I think pretty much the only information available should be the information that's worth showing in a newsfeed: "Zoe read Book X by Author Y today, and rated it 4 stars. Read her review here." People just don't need to see "Zoe read Book X by Author Y, published in 2003 in New York and classified as 823". So there's little point in showing that information elsewhere on FB either.

I don't know about the 200-book limit. Limits seem to me like one of the easiest ways to drive people away from a FB application.

What exactly is meant by "status"? FB has a very specific feature with that name, but LT doesn't, so I don't think that can be what's meant here.

1) Would you use an LT/Facebook app?

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! I actually ended up on LT after finding myself frustrated with some changes on Facebook's iRead (now weRead), where I had become addicted to keeping track of what I was reading.

2) What would such an app need to have *at a minimum*?

Well, I use the one now that barely manages to list books I've added. So I'd use just about anything that works. I think the question you really want to ask here is more along the lines of what would be the minimum that might attract new users/be competitive with virtual bookshelve and weRead.

3) How important is a "full featured" app? (meaning it replicates much of what you can do on LT)

I don't need to be able to do all my LT things from Facebook - I come to LT for that, especially to Talk. What I want a Facebook app to do is to allow me to import all the book stuff I do directly into FB as a way to share things with my friends, and to have conversations on those things with them there. I want this to interface nicely with LT itself. So I want to:

- Be able to choose to update my feed when I add, read, rate, or review a book. 'Read' means pulling data from either the 'currently reading' checkbox or the dates completed, or both. I would also like to be able to do this for or excluding specific tags (IE, 'don't show when I add books tagged 'wishlist'.)
- Have a 'box' that shows off things I have recently done any of the above for, with easy-access links to books, authors, reviews. Much like the widget does - perhaps with the option to include review snippets.
- Be able to recommend books (on iRead, you can 'chuck a book') to friends.
- Use the application to easily access what my facebook friends who are using the app are reading, reviewing, etc.

It would be NICE to be able to add, review, and rate books from facebook. If one must choose asses, I would say that my bullet-list is probably enough to get LT users using it. But it might not be enough to get anyone new to use it.

I think that most FB book apps are aimed at tracking what you read rather than what you own - that's a slightly different philosophy from how much of LT functions. There's no reason, though, that it cannot easily be both.

4) An LT/Facebook app is interesting but if it could do ______ I would use it all the time.

Hm. Perhaps I answered this in 3!

Some other suggestions:

- The fact that LT can pull library data OR amazon data is nice and, I think, fairly unique. Push it.
- The fact that LT does 'works' and that you can tell me how many other users /actually/ own/have read the book (as opposed to the version of the book) is something it has on weRead, anyway. I found that forever frustrating, it's one of the things that drove me away. Market this.
- Quizzes tend to be popular. Meme data, also popular. Things like dead or alive, how many others own the book, similar libraries, auto recommendations, similar favorite author lists - all of these things play on the 'social' aspect of facebook, so I'd push them.
- The ability to choose the cover that actually goes on the book you read is a trivial detail that I absolutely adore, and which I think LT has on any other book app. Push this!

In developing, I'd take a look at weRead and Virtual Bookshelf and ask yourself what LT can already do that those apps can't, especially in terms of leveraging social data and customization (covers, matching you with all others who have the book, listing recs) and really draw on those to make the app stand out.

> 39 By the way, do people want LibraryThing to be able to manually or automatically update your status? We could provide options for keeping LT and FB status's in sync (2 way or 1 way)? The challenge is having this work in a non spammy way.

As an optional and customizable feature, this would be really neat! I would probably use it if, for example, it had the option to say 'Aerrin99 has finished reading The Lies of Locke Lamora!' when I enter the 'finish' date for the book.

Having several options for people to choose from (has finished, has started, loved-hated-liked (words chosen according to rating, maybe customizable), recommends....

I don't know how hard something like this would be to do, or if that's the sort of thing you're thinking of, but-- in wishful thinking world, something like that would be neat!

44: For a non-LT member, adding books through FB is critical.

The quality-of-data implications of this really scare me. I'd really prefer to have the LibraryThing app on Facebook be targeted at LibraryThing users who want to have something on Facebook, rather than at typical Facebook users who are wanting to keep track of their books.

I can see it now... Currently reading: "Xmas Carol LOL becase I gotta for school" by "Charlie Dikens".

Can we at least make sure that the age limit is enforced if we're going to allow non-LT members to use the Facebook app?

(Is the username curmudgeon taken?)

> 53

I would not allow them to change their catalog data from Facebook (IE, change the title, author, etc), but instead just allow them to import their data from LoC or Amazon, or to add books from LT's own 'works' pages. Force them to come to LT to change their own catalog data.

This is much howweRead works and, I suspect, how virtual bookshelf works, although I haven't used it.

53: I'd really prefer to have the LibraryThing app on Facebook be targeted at LibraryThing users who want to have something on Facebook, rather than at typical Facebook users who are wanting to keep track of their books.

That's a reasonable trade-off that makes a lot of sense. A balance probably will need to be made between making the app most effective at giving LT members what they'd want on FB and providing a portal for FB members to be drawn in to LT and--ultimately--start to use the full site. Both probably could make sense in different ways as business models, but it may well be more a question of what Tim & co.'s vision for the app fundamentally is than what we want. Obviously the ideal is to be both as much as possible, but serving as marketing tool seems to always be part of the plan.

But I expect--and hope--that the Facebook app won't be a full version of LT, and that people who want more will eventually go to the site itself.

Oh, absolutely.

And actually now that I think about it I can answer my own question -- that it reduces the number of five-book libraries with crappy data from Facebook people who just want a "what I'm reading now" widget, which would annoy both the Facebook people -- who need to sign up on an outside site just to get that -- and LibraryThing people, who now have a proliferation of low-quality libraries. If this is reaching out to non-members, rather than existing members who want a Facebook app, then by all means let them stay non-members; however, I had thought, as rorrison did, that "I'd really prefer to have the LibraryThing app on Facebook be targeted at LibraryThing users who want to have something on Facebook, rather than at typical Facebook users who are wanting to keep track of their books.".

I think I've been unclear throughout this whole process about why I want an LT app for FB.

It's not because I'm particularly interested in broadcasting information about what I'm reading to the world, just for the sake of it.

It's because I expect that if I share what I'm reading, at least some of my friends will reciprocate.

So as far as I'm concerned, an LT app that's only intended for current LT users would be almost a complete failure. Yes, I'd still use it in the hope that some people might decide to sign up for LT itself--but I don't think it's very likely that they would, and I'd probably end up very disappointed. LT staff would probably also be disappointed if their application got minimal use and didn't lead to any growth.

There are other ways to deal with the quality of data issues--in particular, by just not allowing any manual entry or editing of bibliographic data from Facebook.

There's already been a lot of talk about "generic" editions of books for other purposes, and I imagine that this will be an even greater concern once collections--and therefore wishlists--are finally available. I think that's largely what we need here: a book that consists solely of an unchangeable title and author (maybe drawn from LT's canonical title and author), with the option to change the cover. I haven't thought this through fully, but I think it would be possible to do something along these lines.

I asked my adult daughter, who is a power reader and FB user what she thought: Her response

They'd have at least one new user if the book-cataloging/review/currently reading features could be imported to a Facebook app. I'm not happy with weRead, but don't have the incentive to switch everything over to Visual Bookshelf because VB doesn't have anything more than weRead does. LibraryThing has much more powerful cataloging features, from what little I've seen, so it would be worth it to switch over.

I myself have a FB account, but do 90% of my 'social networking' on LT--I'd like a FB app that showed what I had added and reviewed, but since I don't keep up (except on Challenge threads) with the 'what I'm reading' fields, those would be useless. Since I read 10-15 books a month, that's far too much posting and re-posting to do.

I also feel that the point of having FB app is to draw people to LT. I don't want to be able to catalog in FB unless I'm an LT member. The free 200 book limit is ok, but the app should be pushing people to use LT.

Finally, I agree with everyone that this cannot be one of those apps where I have to send out to everyone. I've already blocked several of them. They are childish and annoying.

This is a terrific idea, but let's get Collections done before we spend manpower on this one.

There are other ways to deal with the quality of data issues--in particular, by just not allowing any manual entry or editing of bibliographic data from Facebook.

But five-book libraries are themselves a quality of data issue. If a million people join to add four Twilight books and Siddhartha that does nothing good for the community data here, or recommendations. Encouraging FB users to just post their current reading like this is...not ideal. And if their stuff is just in a playpen unconnected to the "real" LT, then it's not clear what the point is at all, because other apps can do that.

I guess I just don't see how we are any different from any other book app if we aren't taking advantage of the full set of data kept in LT, which pretty much means you should be a real LT user.

>59 nperrin: I think the data flow should be mostly one-way: the Facebook app makes use of LT data, but LT doesn't make use of the Facebook data until a Facebook user decides to join LT officially and import their books.

"Can we at least make sure that the age limit is enforced if we're going to allow non-LT members to use the Facebook app?"

The age limit is for legal purposes, so Facebook also doesn't allow people under 13.

As for status updates, I find that automatic ones tend to become spammy.

Overall, I would use a FB app and hope that non-LT users would also be able to, because nobody really wants to have to sign up for an entirely different website just to begin to use a simple book app on FB. Ideally the app should be nice enough to attract people to use LT, but not force them to. I don't think the features are what matters at all really (given that whatever features it has will probably be generally useful and while some features would be better than others any at all would be an improvement on none), what matters is the branding as LT.

Since I am not a Facebook user, I am remarkably uninformed on this issue, but I am confused. Tututhefirst says her daughter would use this if it were offered since she thinks LT has what she needs. Why does she need an FB app to join. Can't she just join?

MM--to answer your question, she could probably join, but she is a power FB user, and I think, she wants to be able to interface from FB. OTOH, I'm not a power FB user (I only have the account so I know what the teenaged patrons in our library are talking about) and so I can post pictures for my family (many of whom have FB pages.) I guess it's all in what you're looking for. I sure don't want to have to track things twice.

Another thing to consider when thinking about Facebook: There's a tool called RPX (https://rpxnow.com/) which allows a website to use multiple providers for authentication, originally OpenID but also Google, Yahoo, and ... Facebook. The idea is that if a visitor to LibraryThing can authenticate with one of those providers, they can use that ID as an account on LibraryThing. This would possibly be an easy way to provide LT accounts for FB users.

Well, presumably LT would distinguish itself by having features better than other book apps. If it doesn't have at a minimum the functionality that the others do, yeah it'd be different, but I don't see why anyone would want to use it (unless they were already a member of LibraryThing).

I definitely would love to get a decent facebook app. Most importantly to me is to share with my friends the books I read. That means my facebook feed should integrate the LT events ie books added, reviewed and scored, just like in the box below the profile. Ideally it would also provide the cover.
I see no need to display on facebook my catalog or my profile but rather provide links to LT.

In a second phase, I think the app should enable to connect to friends easily. My current facebook contacts are sometimes on LT but mostly not. I should be able to identify who is on which site and connect/invite with a single click.
Facebook Connect could also be used to associate the LT account with the Facebook one and maybe migrate contacts ?

Third idea also using FB connect would be to publish in my facebook feed the post I do on the Librarything forums. It could also bring Facebook users to discuss on LT, maybe just logging with their Facebook ID ?

I am badly missing the books I reviewed feed in FB, trying to work around through Friendfeed but this is a must that should be done yesterday!

Talking about convergence, has anyone considered integrating OpenID ?

I've been on LT for a couple years now and only on FB for a few months. I'm having fun with it and the family and friends with whom I am connected.

I have not found WeRead but did sign up for Visual Bookshelf and really am not at all impressed with it. If an LT app were made available, I'd drop the Visual Bookshelf in a flash.

A way to link what I am reading (and when I am done) between FB & LT would be nice. Perhaps the ratings as well.

1) Yes - I already use the unofficial one.

2) Minimum standards: the ability to show random books if that's what I want, the ability to correctly process apostrophes, and displaying covers instead of text (Facebook is very visual).

3) Pretty important; the existing app already shows my most recent additions.

4) An LT/Facebook app is interesting but if it could add books and suggest books to friends and stuff, I would use it all the time. Actually, this isn't something I want, but it is what my friends would want.

I agree with whoever said Flixster had a good model. I also like the Netflix application, because it actually lets me know I have a new movie coming *before* Netflix's email gets to me. It makes Facebook like an RSS reader, only much more awesome.

1) Probably

2) Informing the world of everything I do in LT is a definite NO. (No automatic "XXX added a book", "XXX combined an author"...)

But I'd really like the option to push simple info from LT to my Facebook profile. Say a number of simple clickbutton functions on the book/author page that posts predefined messages on my Facebook wall. A simple fill-in-the-blanks function would do it, if the result was a wall message with cover image and hyperlinks to LT book/author. (I.e. click => "XXX ______Novelname Authorname _____" => fill in, click => wall post "XXX recommends Novelname by Authorname", "...recommends this LT review of...", "...discovered a great new author, Authorname", "...thinks ... is trash", etc.)

3) Not at all important. But at intoductory level, the ability to create a LT library, perform "Add Book" and link back to books added would be crucial.

edited for clarification.

53: I'd really prefer to have the LibraryThing app on Facebook be targeted at LibraryThing users who want to have something on Facebook, rather than at typical Facebook users who are wanting to keep track of their books.

I absolutely agree with that. I don't want LT to dilute its brand by becoming an also-ran, somewhat late to the field WeRead on Facebook. Any LT Facebook app needs to stand on LT's existing strengths (cataloguing, community, accuracy, innovation) rather than adapt too much for FB.

> 72 Any LT Facebook app needs to stand on LT's existing strengths (cataloguing, community, accuracy, innovation) rather than adapt too much for FB.

I think it's very possible to do that /and/ appeal to the 'typical Facebook user' who just wants to keep track of their books (or what they are reading).

In fact, a search for a better way to keep track of what I'm reading is what led me /from/ Facebook to LT. There are many people who appreciate all the things you listed, but who are more interested in tracking current reads than books owned - especially younger people, who may either be uninclined or unfinanced to amass sizable physical libraries at this stage in their life.

I don't think it has to be an either/or choice!

Rethinking my answer, I think that things that would separate an LT app from others on Facebook would be the ability to display reviews and star ratings as well as basic book info, even in the small Wall box. I'd also like to be able to display the tags I've given an item.

Covers are a must - Facebook is pretty visual.

Displaying a particular tag, and being able to eliminate a particular tag (i.e., wishlist, TBR) would both be good.

Personally, I'd like to see a tag cloud. And maybe be able to search my catalog, with the results opening on the LT site.

It should definitely also be available as a profile tab, not just a box on the Wall or Boxes tab. That version can have more of the advanced features you're asking about - adding, reviewing, tagging, tag cloud. I think the most you'd want to put in the boxes would be what's available in the LT widget now.

1) Would you use an LT/Facebook app?

Probably. OK, make that definitely.

2) What would such an app need to have *at a minimum*?

The ability of displaying books from my library, with cover pictures, based on criteria of my choice (random, N more recent additions, some search... I might want to change every now and then). For privacy reasons, I would also like to keep my FB and LT profiles entirerly separate, i.e. no clickable links from one to the other or any personal identification unless I explicitly allow it.
I'll be happy to show off some LT stuff on FB, it doesn't mean I want all of my "friends" to look at all the books I own.

3) How important is a "full featured" app? (meaning it replicates much of what you can do on LT)

Not important to me. A read-only view is enough, I don't intend to modifiy my collection or books from FB.

>74 timepiece:

I agree that the tag cloud would be a good addition.

What distinguishes LibraryThing from its competitors on the facebook platform are quality of data (Library sources!) and the absolute wealth of peripheral data – from the unsuggester to the obscureness ratings and the (bizarrely-named, but we forgive you) 'You and None Other.'

I'd love to see some of these as options, which I think is much more interesting (and likely to draw in new members?) than just seeing what books someone has recently rated (although that's necessary too!)

1) Yes, I'd love to be able to use LibraryThing and FaceBook together.

2) Display my library in a visually appealing way, with covers. Update friends when I add books. Work with status (read, unread, to read, currently reading, owned, unowned, wants to read). Lending recommendations - where person A is told that person B wants to read a book that person A owns in case they want to lend it. The ability to control which books are publicly viewable by friends, and which remain private.

3) Not very. I'd be quite happy to use LibraryThing for the more advanced features.

I've started using Visual Bookshelf at Facebook, and find that's good. But I don't want to maintain two libraries.

2) What would such an app need to have *at a minimum*?
- connect to my already-existing LT account
- add books by isbn (auto-select author/title/cover for me)
- option to show new books (added via fb or LT proper) as part of my feed
- not require my friends to create a LT proper account in order to try it out
- option to create a free LT account through the app if they don't have one
- friends (finer-grained control is not necessary) can see my library (author/title/isbn/cover) without having to click through to LT
- ability to click through to my LT page (provided I have an account)

2b) what would such an app *NOT* need ever?
- no need for ability to add books by any other means than isbn (e.g. author/title is not required and I agree that opening this up to FB users is asking for a barrage of crappy abbreviations -- isbn is all 95% of people really need 95% of the time)
- no need for any extra catalog editing (want to change cover picture? Create a / Click through to your LT account for more powa!)
- no need to have more books than the free account. This would only confuse things if people had added e.g. 300 books via FB but wanted to create a free LT account. If people want to add more than 200 you should point them clearly at how to create a paid account.
- no need for complex privacy controls. If people don't want their library to be shown to their friends, then they just won't add embarrassing books. This is the usual facebook way, from what I can tell.

3) How important is a "full featured" app? (meaning it replicates much of what you can do on LT)
- completely unimportant. From my point of view, "much of what I can do on LT" means most of the cataloguing features. Doing that through facebook is going to be more painful than necessary. See 2 and 2b.

4) An LT/Facebook app is interesting but if it could do ______ I would use it all the time.
- let me tag books
- let me specify a tag to show as part of my feed (e.g. "Zac tagged _Perdido Street Station_ as 'favourite' with LibraryThing")

Benefits to LT: I think if you let people add via ISBN and tag, LT gets a lot of extra tagging data, even for those who don't create an account. Most extra features for the app that I can think of are tag-related (e.g. show tags for this book from the LT community, generalize the "tag to show in my feed" feature to more than one tag, show my tag cloud, etc.) (an exception would be to show books I have in common with FB friends). But those could come at a later date, if ever. Initial implementation would ideally have all of the features in 2) above. I'd be happy to help beta test (can you have limited-availability beta-quality apps on facebook? I am completely ignorant about their platform.)

I think forcing people to add books by ISBN would pretty much kill any appeal for those who aren't already LT users.

79>

I'm on the face as to whether it's likely, but it's more than possible it'd have the result you describe. I know I have a lot of books without ISBNs. The average FB user might have a much, ahem, younger library than I do, though.

I'm thinking not so much that their books wouldn't have ISBNs as that they wouldn't want to bother looking up the ISBN for every book before adding it. It would be a huge inconvenience at the very first step of using the application, so why even look at the app any further?

79, 81: I think you're right, and this is why I can't understand why we would pursue FB users--typing a 13-character string is not that hard. But if we're going to, I think we desperately need a bare edition to add, so they can have title and author and be part of the right work, but not create a bunch more bad data.

Honestly, if LT had made me catalogue all my books by ISBN I wouldn't be here right now. Facebook users aren't necessarily stupid. Yes, typing the string is easy, but finding it to begin with is extra work, and unnecessary extra work is just annoying.

I do think there should be a bare edition that FB users can add. That might also be useful for wishlists, and for adding directly from a work page.

It's not about smart vs. stupid; you don't have to be smart to search by ISBN, you just have to be motivated to find your exact edition and get the best possible data. It's that motivation I think would be lacking.

I would have no problem with people adding bare editions to their hearts' content; I wish it had been available from the outset so all the other unmotivated people who are real members could have used them instead of inflating the popularity of whatever comes up first in an Amazon search. I just think it should definitely be available if we are going to open things up to potentially millions of people who probably care a lot less about the data than just about anyone here.

1) Would you use an LT/Facebook app?

I would definitely use a Facebook application for LT. In fact, I think that my use of LT is held back because there is no facebook integration. For better or worse, those of us who started college when Facebook was still a university-only operation tend to use Facebook as our social networking hub.

2) What would such an app need to have *at a minimum*?
* Activity on LT should be pushed to my facebook. So that my friends will receive notices in their News Feed that say "Steve just reviewed this awesome book". This is actually the only feature that I would really require.

* The ability to figure out which of my Facebook friends are on LT.

Both of these are based on my usage of facebook as a hub for my social networking activity. In general I really only care that my facebook friends can see what I'm doing on LT and easily hop over to browse my library if they want to.

3) How important is a "full featured" app? (meaning it replicates much of what you can do on LT)

* This is not very important to me.

4) An LT/Facebook app is interesting but if it could do ______ I would use it all the time.

* See my answer to 2.

I am of the opposite generation of ssd7 - when I went to college, we had typewriters - white out hadn't even been invented..we used carbon paper. I have only recently started a FB account (and for that matter only recently started with LT) ..LT tends to be my primary social network.

That said I would echo completely #85 on answers 2,3,4.

#1, I can't say I'd use the app until I saw how much work was going to be involved. I'm happy with LT, and have finally (after 8 months) figured out how to use most of the features - altho I probably only use about 50% if its capabilities. I certainly don't want to have to enter stuff over again, and I don't really want to use FB to catalog, or 'chat' with LT friends. I'd like my FB account to point to LT (w/o the need for my friends to join or ask for permissions- see early discussions).

It seems that some of the concern over having Facebook-only users ("FB-LTers") is that they wouldn't be as concerned with data clean-up as LT-sourced users ("LT-ers") are. Perhaps there's a way around that?

For instance, rather than having those users' ADDs go to a million different possible sources, just pick one -- probably amazon, alas. That would also generate more click-thru revenue for LT (is this a big source of revenue anyway, I wonder?).

And, don't allow editing of bib fields from facebook; just tags & status; dates read; and whatever social networking stuff is appropriate ("friends" from LT or FB or whatever). The tagging data seems like it might be just fine and in fact maybe it would be "better" in some sense if it had a broader input base.

Then, if a FB-LTer wants to do more serious editing / catalog maintenance, they can click on the link to LT proper.

Yes, there would be mucky data from amazon, but that mucky data is already there, and is already cleaned up in many instances. So it might not add too much more muck. And by not permitting FB bib-field editing, you avoid the really really bad record problems.

(eta: I see this was already suggested upthread at #54 by Aerrin99 ... so, I second.)

as for the questions:
(1) yes, I would use a FB app;

(2) all i really want from it is a) random books, b) currently reading, c) possibility of status updates pulled from LT recent activity (but ability to pick & choose which LT activities get pushed), d) some friend-networking.

(3) not at all important to me for it to be full-featured. for me, there's too much FB overhead (screen real estate and ads and another whole site to download from and so on) to make it worthwhile to catalog on LT via FB, even if i were so inclined, and i'm not so inclined. I'd rather get a more minimal ("minimal" != "half-assed") version for FB, sooner, than wait longer for full featured that would go unused by most FB-LTers and LT-FBers alike. also, as i wrote above, i think there are data management reasons for restricting full functionality from FB-LTers. AND, i wouldn't want all LT staff time to be split b/w FB & LT inputs. Unless no additional work is required because FB just frames LT, then it would hurt LT-side improvements, and that would be Bad. Please, please, go clean, simple, and elegant; that's all 95% of facebook users want anyway, and it's all that some significant portion of LT users who would also use FB want.

(4) in terms of "using it all the time", I would not; I would set it up once and periodically tweak it thereafter. but it would be on my profile, just as the widget is on my blog. so that's a type of "all the time use". but i would still come to lt.com to edit.

What if we encouraged people to use LT for the actively activity by giving FB people free accounts?

I'm not sure what you mean by "the actively activity". I'm going to assume you mean cataloguing.

Also, do you mean free accounts in the currently sense of 200-book-limited free accounts, or free accounts in the sense of free lifetime accounts?

Either way, I don't think it would work to attract new users, which I assume is one of your goals with a FB app. When someone adds a new FB app, they expect to be able to use it from FB.

Sorry. Brain isn't working.

Yes, how much of a difference is that going to make?

I disagree that they always expect that. For example, lots of people have the Flickr app. They use it to show what they're doing on Flickr. I don't know how much functionality it has, but it doesn't replicate Flickr.

What is the goal? Or are you asking us what the goal should be?

Free accounts, beyond what is already offerred, doesn't seem to be in LT's best interest.

I am fairly new to facebook, and not really sure that I find it useful yet, but I think I agree with the comparison to Flickr...sharing info from LT onto FB with my friends being able to go to my profile/library on LT. HOWEVER, they need to be able to go to my profile/library on LT consistently or this will be a frustrating and negative experience. I have shared the link to my profile/library with people and they have received messages that it is too busy for them to access it. Don't offer this if it can not be supported.

I assume the people who use the Flickr app are already Flickr users. I don't think new people would start using Flickr just for the sake of a FB app.

Yes, how much of a difference is that going to make?

Cataloguing or not cataloguing in the app? I think that will make the difference between attracting new users or just giving your current users a new feature.

Right, I agree.

Not sure what you meant by free accounts, but you could offer a special deal to people who sign up through FB, where they get a higher free book limit (300, 500?) or get a free paid membership for a year.
I'm not sure, however, whether either of those would be a good idea from a business and revenue point of view. However, upping the limit for a free account is a frequent request anyway, and the 200-book limit is something that seems to be a "block" for a some of the people who use other book sites rather than LT.
I'm just thinking aloud here. I'm not sure what would make the most sense.

So I assume that if you're considering offering free accounts to FB users, you want to get them using LT?

Like rsterling, I'm not sure that free accounts would be the best idea, not least because it might annoy non-FB users. It's worth considering, though. I think before that, though, I would consider raising the free book limit more generally.

edit: Also, getting a bit sidetracked here, have you considered adding a donation feature for members? A lot of people have mentioned that they'd like to give money to LT but don't have an easy way to do it. That might partially make up for a loss of revenue from paid accounts.

Arg. Lost wifi down here (at home). So I lost my message. Curses.

To back up a few messages: How hard is it to find the ISBN? It's usually on the back cover, or on the verso (back of the title page). Not too difficult.

BTW, Tim, thanks for helping me with my Talk problem. As you can see, I'm back gabbing away. And yes, I blame the cat.

I just read in Maclife that bruji's cdpedia could use the built in isight to read the isbn barcode of CD's so I thought to myself, self, we should try that with books and their bookpedia application which I use natively.

It worked great, capturing the barcode and ISBN number immediately, which I then cut and pasted into addbooks here on LT. But wouldn't it be a nice feature one day for LT to have that also... (I know Tim has a lot on his plate...)

>97 MerryMary: No, it's not hard. But it's still time consuming if you're doing multiple books at once, especially when you consider that the alternative (finding books by title) requires no extra effort at all.

>97 MerryMary:

Not to mention, some people don't care as much about edition, and they might be cataloging by memory when they're not actually near their collection. When I decided to add books I had merely read (but did not own), I added by title, not ISBN, because I didn't actually have a copy to look for an ISBN on.

Even if you're adding things you don't own, you might decide to add your complete collection of Agatha Christie mysteries without actually getting up and taking each one off the shelves (or, you know, while you're at work, or the cafe ...).

I personally would not use a facebook app that required ISBN entry. It's far more of a hassle, and on facebook I don't want to show my friends what specific book edition I have so much as what books of interest I have read. I would likely enter books on the app without having them physically beside me, and so would be unable to easily access an ISBN number.

More importantly, it defeats the ease of use of LT which is what should be being showcased on a FB app. I would never have joined LT if I had to manually enter strings of numbers for hundreds of books.

98 - Isn't that pretty much what the cuecats do? I do feel like Tim once said something about scanning and adding books via cell-phone cameras, but then again, it might have been someone else suggesting it.

It might be, but now I don't have to buy a cue cat.

For me, I don't only enter by ISBN because it's easier to get the right edition (although I'm sure I have plenty of bad data on those books where I trusted the ISBN and didn't edit the data right there and then) but because it's often easier to type in a ten- or thirteen-character string of numbers than a twenty- or thirty-character title. I agree that not everyone will want to do that, though, and again I have lots of ISBN-less books since a lot of my books come from library sales or used book stores or are my parents old books college.

102 - we've experimented with a couple of programs to read barcodes from cell phone/web cameras. Neither one worked well, and they were frustrating to use.

The Japanese, of course, are way ahead of US as far as doing geeky things with cell phones. They use QR codes, which are much easier to read with a lo-fi camera than barcodes are.

Casey, the web camera/isight solution that Bookpedia had was quite simple from a user stance. It opened a window on the desktop and that had a series of horizontal lines that as I held the barcode up to be scanned, turned colors as it captured the scan. Very nice solution.

106: I beta tested a similar thing when they were trying out the webcam version, which was basically as you described, and it really, really did not work well. I couldn't get it to scan a single barcode correctly with my webcam. I think these things are highly dependent on whether you can focus the camera, where the autofocus is, and whether your hands are even the tiniest bit shaky. A bunch of us were testing it and it was just not happening.

I'd love to be able to insert something like the blog widget onto my facebook page. So that my friends on fb could get a random look at stuff in my library, and some of them would think OMG she is a real geek, but others would be really interested and would not only look at my LT pages but would want their own.

1) Would you use an LT/Facebook app?

Absolutely yes. This is one area that LT is so far behind their competition it is embarrassing. Goodreads, Anobii, Shelfarii etc. all have Facebook apps. While the actual Librarything site is better than those others I feel LT is very late to the game here and giving up market share. To be honest I have been frustrated about that for some time.

2) What would such an app need to have *at a minimum*?

I prefer you can at least match the other services facebook apps that is actually be able to catalog books, display random books from library in a box, when new books are added have the option of these books appearing in the wall feed.

3) How important is a "full featured" app? (meaning it replicates much of what you can do on LT)

I feel it is important, I feel we are so far behind the other book sites already we ought to at least match them.

WeRead and Visual bookshelf are my favorite FB book apps.

It would be nice if we could do show friend's shelves like the shelfari app.

Honestly I was using facebook today and utilized the Visual Bookshelf application and thought that was pretty nice, simple and useful for me. Something like the current widgets would be great. Show new additions, I like the option of "What Im reading Now" and the random generator of books in my library.

zeke jakub

> 97 How hard is it to find the ISBN? It's usually on the back cover, or on the verso (back of the title page). Not too difficult.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned yet is that a lot of people - even a lot of voracious readers - don't actually know what an ISBN /is/. I think using ISBN should always be an option, but never a requirement.

Also, a good portion of the time I don't have the book in front of me when I add it to LT.

I guess I didn't catch the idea that ISBN would be required. That does change the concept. But it would be unworkable anyway - a lot of books don't have an ISBN.

ISBN: International Standard Book Number

I have tags that serve the purpose of what i'm reading, what i've read, and what i'm reading next. So for me, I'd like the option to show tagged books. I'd also like book images, as I like the visual images of my books.

I really don't want it to replace visiting the LT site. All I want is the option to display the books I'm currently reading, instead of trying to keep up with some new widget I don't care about.

I love the wordpress widget, have been using it for months!

@ 105

On cell phones with autofocus there are applications like Zxing or Upcode that can read 1D barcodes. I tried and it works great reading them only no follow up to do something with the codes. Maybe such an application could (easily) be modified to work with Librarything (mobile)?

I agree with whoever mentioned flixter as an example of a good application. It is probably the most popular movie application out there. Members can join from facebook, myspace or you can import your already existing flixter account. You can update friends, movies, reviews etc from either the FB or MS application or your flixter account. It includes lists of movies you've seen, want to see, and how your taste in movies compares with your friends. It doesn't compare dvd libraries however which is the strong point of Library Thing. I love to see who has similar libraries to mine or what my friends have on their shelves. Hope this is making sense.

Keep it simple! people who use facebook don't want complicated postings!

You might get some new members!

1) Would you use an LT/Facebook app?

Yes. I already use Face book to post my LT profile so people can link to it.

2) What would such an app need to have *at a minimum*?

I think you should see that "face book" is adding its own books component and I would hope that you would get it together before they shut you out...

I really enjoy LT and think it is differant than facebook but many of my facebook freinds are avid readers and might enjoy looking at my library- and reviews...

3) How important is a "full featured" app? (meaning it replicates much of what you can do on LT)

Keep it simple!
Having some of our reviews show up would be cool... post them as we do them having access to our library...to view like link- gives us an opportunity as someone said to share something that is important to us... books...

remember keep it simple... maybe we could have a book corner on face book or see if we can intergrate with what they do??? something that would show the book covers of a book we are currently reading... and 3-4 favorites... a place for friends to recomend and links our Libarything profile

We don't need to be snobs about this... I think that sharing the gift of good books with friends is not a bad thing...

great post! No 109 -no 110 Get in the game!

see below ) Would you use an LT/Facebook app?

Absolutely yes. This is one area that LT is so far behind their competition it is embarrassing. Goodreads, Anobii, Shelfarii etc. all have Facebook apps. While the actual Librarything site is better than those others I feel LT is very late to the game here and giving up market share. To be honest I have been frustrated about that for some time.

2) What would such an app need to have *at a minimum*?

I prefer you can at least match the other services facebook apps that is actually be able to catalog books, display random books from library in a box, when new books are added have the option of these books appearing in the wall feed.

3) How important is a "full featured" app? (meaning it replicates much of what you can do on LT)

I feel it is important, I feel we are so far behind the other book sites already we ought to at least match them.

WeRead and Visual bookshelf are my favorite FB book apps.

It would be nice if we could do show friend's shelves like the shelfari app.

I can't believe how long LT has been talking about a Facebook app: wondering about whether or not to make one and, if so, how fancy to make it. It's a pretty ridiculous conversation, in my opinion. Facebook is the largest single online social market out there, and many of its users would be open to a service like LT. But instead of jumping on that wave and riding it over a year ago (when these conversations started), it's been nothing but the same stale conversation with no progress.

I think LT is a great service and a great site with a great community, but I also think LT has missed a great opportunity in Facebook and continues to do so. I'm not saying LT is sinking exactly, but something about playing violins on the deck of the Titanic seems appropriate here ...

As a library with a page on Facebook, I'd love a search box for our catalog on Facebook - something similar to the WorldCat app would be great. It would also be nice if the app could highlight books we recently added to the collection, but without a date/time stamp of when they were added to the collection.

>118 erichoefler:

That's definitely true, as long as you don't look at traffic, site usage or finances. By any non-existent metric, we are in trouble.

118 > I think those violins are only in your head. You may want to get that checked out. :)

Here's a thing,

One of my specialty Book suppliers just joined FB. I like Nautical Fiction, and the supplier joined. They contacted me on FB to add as a friend. They joined as an identity of their shop, since I get their flyers and catalog and have given them my email they found me.

Now we are concerned about professionals and spammers, but I encouraged this small publisher/company, to use one of the already existing sites to list all the books that he sells, and they are all specialized in the Nautical Fiction field, that way when his fans go to the page, they can quickly see his books.

Would not something like that be useful here at LT?

"I'm not saying LT is sinking exactly ..."

Guess I'm just really tired of this endless debate (that really shouldn't be a debate) without any action. You keep asking the same questions, keep getting the same responses, and keep doing nothing about it. Just an issue that obviously pushes some buttons for me. Either do it or drop it. I can respect either approach.

>123 erichoefler:

No, I hear you. We *are* working on it. It's too bad the first try didn't work out.

"1) Would you use an LT/Facebook app?"

No. I don't do Facebook and have no plans to start. (just representing the other side of the debate...)

I thought I would jump in and give my two cents. (Excuse me if much of this has already been mentioned. I tried to read a good many of the posts, but there are alot of them!)

Before I begin, let me say that I am VERY happy yall are looking into this. It is something that I have wanted for some time as I am a pretty addicted facebook user (I probably check it 4-5 times an hour, so yes, I count that as an addiction.)

1. Would I use a LT/Facebook app? Yes!

2. What would such an app need to have at a minimum?

In terms of what I would expect from a facebook app, I would:

A) I would most definitely want a Profile Box that displayed roughly the exact same information as the Blog Widget. I have to say that I am not concerned with covers or no covers. If I could add one feature to the Blog widget, it would be to exclude certain tags (The current selection only allows us to include all tags or a specifc tag.)

B) I would love in the "Application Info Section" to have a seciton labelled "My Library" that allowed me to type in some short text describing my library and provide a link to my library http://www.librarything.com/catalog/username

C) I think in terms of the Feeds that it would be nice if we could have something like the following
X Publicize the adding of a book to your feed
X Publicize the tagging of the reading tag on a book to your feed
X Publicize the tagging of the read tag on a book to your feed
X Publicize the rating of a book on your feed
X Publicize the reviewing of a book on your feed (with link to review)

(I personallly would opt out of publicizing every add. I think that is just overkill, but I put it in, because many people would love that.)

3. How important is a full featured app? I honestly don't want LibraryThing *in* Facebook. I still prefer to use the LibraryThing web interface we have.

4. I think if the LT/Facebook app did all of the above I would definitely use it all the time. I obviously see it as more of a "viewer" than a "tool". I think you have a great opportunity to develop not one but two facebook apps here. The viewer would be immediately helpful. The tool will need to be perfected. Would I use the tool, possibly not. However, the sheer number of rabid facebook junkies who might would definitely be a good cause to shoot for it. I think attempting to sandwich both viewer and tool into one app may be a bad idea.

In Message 39, you asked about Status Updates and Non-LT users. I personally use Ping.FM to update my facebook, myspace, and twitter all at one time. If we have a status line on LT, I would love to be able to update it with Ping.Fm ;-) (of course, I am a gadget/web geek so many have probably never used ping.fm)

In the same vein, I don't think it would be out of the question to create a third app that essentially was librarything based memes. I am not sure about yall, but periodically all of my friends seem to fill out or do Internet memes. Two of interest to this topic lately are a) Put an asterick behind each of these 100 books you read and compare to your friends. (Can you imagine how much more exciting htat would have been by allowing a user to create a poll with 12 books from LT and then having their friends select the ones they read.) b) another popular one lately that I have seen several variations of is a picture with 14 items on it, and your goal was to tag each item with one of your facebook friends. In this case it was character trait based, like "the loner", "the player", etc. Now imagine this from a book basis that could link back to librarything and give publicity. You could have a selection of books like Wicked by Gregory Maguire, The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett, Jekyll & Hyde by Stevenson ;-)

Finally and most esoterically this struck me, could comments about what I am reading/reviewed, etc be pulled back into LT somehow and would that be sensible. I have to think on that for a bit.

PS - I am with many of these people in that I want to make sure that any app that is developed does not require my friends to "Add it" in order to view my catalog, nor does it "automagically" send out app requests. And please please, no "Billy Joe sent you a copy of the Maltese Falcon by Hammett" kind of features. I currently have over a 160 of those in my FB box that I refuse to open.

"automagically" What a wonderful word. Explains a lot of my world.

The Facebook viewer sounds ideal. (I am not a heavy Facebook user - so the "has finished reading...." might be the majority of my updates...

Just to clarify (again), my frustration in the delay on the Facebook app comes mainly from how much I like LT and want to bring it into other parts of my online life. It really does feel like a no-brainer that LT should have a solid FB app by now (as an option for users to use or not, and with a number of ways to customize how the app works). If that had been executed when apps first became possible (given some time for development), not only would it have evolved into an even more useful tool, but you could now be talking about how to build a solid and useful iPhone app ... but instead we're still talking about Facebook.

Flixster is a good example of how the FB/iPhone thing can be "done right," though of course with different goals and audiences. I'm not saying LT should in any way compromise its values and goals or change its target audience, I'm just saying Facebook, and now increasingly iPhone, is where many of those people are and LT could provide great things to the audience it already has on those services. Instead, they have to settle for other apps when we're somewhere else, which forces them to split their loyalty.

As I become a little more familiar with fb, I can sympathize with you, sicheiiyazhi. You seem to be thoughtful, articulate, and reasonable. But when this was first brought up, I was one of the ones against it. It seemed to me to be messy, inane, and pointless. I know this sounds bigoted, but I didn't want "those people" overrunning this wonderful oasis I had found.

I no longer feel that way - at least not very much! - but I'm not the only one who had that impression. I'm not saying it's right (it's not) but I am saying that may have been the source of some of the opposition.

Another factor, of course, is that LT grew "like Topsy," and it isn't always easy to go back and retrofit a new idea onto an older framework.

I agree with a lot of what sicheiiyazhi is saying. Apps in general aren't as powerful on Facebook as they were a year ago I would hazard a guess. When they were newer and more interesting, more people were using them and then there sort of became an inundation of them and at least (from my end of it) it seems like fewer people are bothering to use them on facebook these days, especially with some of the redesigns that are aiming to make facebook more twitterlike. So while an app would still be a great thing for LT to make for FB, it would have been even greater to worry less about what it did and get something out there for people to use promote LT while everyone was jumping on the app bandwagon.

I've arrived at this discussion late, so I'm posting here partly so this post now shows up in "My posts", and partly because I want to add that I'm very keen to see FB/LT integration. Flixster *is* undoubtedly the best model, though it's worth remembering that the Flixster app has evolved over time.

There's no need to replicate LT within FB, but if all the app does is report news of what goes on over at LT, it will only appeal to existing LT users, not to anyone else.

Don't forget you can display iFrames in FB...

1) Would you use an LT/Facebook app? Absolutely yes.

2) What would such an app need to have *at a minimum*? Would like to have a box to display books with a certain tag or tags. Like the current widgets. Would like my reviews to post to my profile on FB. Maybe as a "Note?" Would like a post on my wall when I add a new book. Like last.fm does when I love a song there.

3) How important is a "full featured" app? (meaning it replicates much of what you can do on LT) Not important to me, I'd feel more comfortable actually at the LT site.

4) An LT/Facebook app is interesting but if it could do ______ I would use it all the time. See number 2 above.

Also please tell us about any stand out to applications you use that you think we should look at for inspiration.

Last.fm
WeRead (although I have found this cumbersome to use)

What I would like is first of all to improve on the functionality I've already got in Facebook: namely, list random books, and post updates about the activities we select. The app that shows five books from your library is kinda funky, and I couldn't find any better solution when I tried to figure out what I could get by combining LT's and FB's API's. And I am currently using the tag rss feed from my "recently read" tag to post notes as "my blog" on my profile, but really what I want is to post (not as notes but as regular feed stories) my reviews. Something like:
Michelle has reviewed -title- by -name- on LibraryThing: --first 200 characters of review-- (click for more could expand on FB or lead to LT). Joe's list of options (msg 126) is about right, I think. Please do this asap, because I've been putting up with my current kluges too long and really don't want to have to start maintaining another system. The thing about publishing feed stories--aside from the fact that you MUST aggregate them if there are a bunch, say more than two vertical inches of screen space, so as not to be incredibly irritating--is that they benefit even non-users. I use FB to keep tab on what my friends and acquaintances are thinking and doing, and LT is definitely part of what I'm thinking and doing, so I want to be able to include that seamlessly.

Second layer would be leveraging FB features, such as the suggestions above for integrating LT Local with FB Events, finding out which FB friends have LT libraries, and giving book suggestions. These are lower priority and if you add them later you can send a private message to app users to say, hey, check out/activate these new features.

I guess there are two broad classes of FB apps: ones that integrate two different sites a person uses, providing a crosswalk so that users do not duplicate effort across platforms, and ones that "stand alone" "within" FB for playing games, sending notes, etc. Now, technologically, as far as FB is concerned, these are the same thing, but they are very different from the experience point of view. I picture an LT application as being primarily the former. I do note that as far as allowing people to enter books and worrying about spelling, you have a model of how to do that on this very page: touchstones.

I think you know this, but it can't be stressed enough: NO mass invites--if the app can invite someone, it's because I have some specific action I'm taking and when I do it it tells me it will trigger an invite. NO spammy messages--default to having practically everything turned OFF as far as feed stories, and definitely do any aggregation you can.

I use "WeRead" on Facebook, just as a way to blip into my profile what I happen to be reading (or have finished reading--I'm a parallel reader to a fault!). It's infuriating, as it doesn't even support Firefox 3, yet I keep using it since I've invested so much time into it. But I would love to see a LT app that does the same kind of thing--maybe throw in profile entries for adding books, tagging books, reviewing and rating--hopefully, configurable by the user. But just that much would be "fully featured" to me. I don't have any desire to manage my library from Facebook; I just wish for one-stop shopping when it comes to publishing my bookish activities.

I don't have any desire to manage my library from Facebook; I just wish for one-stop shopping when it comes to publishing my bookish activities. (#156)

I totally agree.

I end up reading this thread because it shows up on my "My Groups" list -

Just a few comments:

The responses on this thread will be heavily biased by postings of people who are FB users - everyone else will just skip it as not of interest to them. Just something to keep in mind when deciding how much LT programming power to allocate to this app.

Having said that -
I think that it is important for LT to develop an "acceptable/attractive" to users FB app since many, many people are apparently FB users and could potentially expose alot of people to LT via this association.

My answers:
1) Would you use an LT/Facebook app?

No. I don't have a FB account.

2)

Well the rest is kind of moot after my response to #1, isn't it?

I think you can probably guess from my postings that I don't either. I don't feel like a Luddite, but I must be. I just don't see the point of FB. I guess I get all the friendship I need right here AND catalog my books besides.

I am a FB user, and assuming that a LT presence there would incorporate some of the upcoming Collections functionality, I would love to use it. I would immediately jettison the books app I'm using there already.

1) Would you use an LT/Facebook app?

Yes!

2) What would such an app need to have *at a minimum*?

Be able to view "basic" data on all of my existing LT items--title, author, maybe tags. Once Collections are available, show how my books are organized within my Collections. Feed reports of new entries at LT over to FB.

3) How important is a "full featured" app? (meaning it replicates much of what you can do on LT)

Not important at all. I'm picturing the LT-on-FB app as just a publicly-viewable "window" into my LT holdings. I expect I'd continue to do all my LT account management *at* the LT site. Of course LT is an open site, but I have to get people over here first before they can see what I've got. I'd like to give them a peek from FB.

4) An LT/Facebook app is interesting but if it could show "currently reading" I would use it all the time.

Hence, I'd want Collection features to be included in the FB app.

Thinking more about how I would use LT on fb, I wouldn't want to duplicate my collection onto fb, but what I would like to do, is maybe have a "shelf" of books I'm reading or have read and enjoyed. Or not enjoyed. My LT library is entirely books I own. But I've read some notable and favourite books that I don't actually own, and would like to be able to say that on fb, to my friends and family who use fb but think I'm a nerd to use LT. (Truly! can you imagine that? But they look blankly at me as if - "oh no. She's making LISTS again....")
Anyway. That's what I would like to use it for.

1) Waiting impatiently to do so.

2) "recently added", "now reading", and "top 10" book lists.

3) Not important

1) Would you use an LT/Facebook app?

Yes

2) What would such an app need to have *at a minimum*?

Link to my LT page and random books from my library

3) How important is a "full featured" app? (meaning it replicates much of what you can do on LT)

Not important

4) An LT/Facebook app is interesting but if it could do ______ I would use it all the time.

N/A

1) Would you use an LT/Facebook app?

Depends on what you mean by "use." Would I add an LT ap to my FB page? Almost certainly. I'm already using the other LT ap to display my "currently added" books, although, looking at it right now, it doesn't seem that current.
But if you mean "would I install and interact with a Facebook ap, probably not, but that has more to do with the way I used FB. Mostly I follow the feed, see what my friends are up to, and occasionally respond to them. I do as much of that as possible without actually visiting the Facebook site, so any ap that requires me to sit on the Facebook page and poke at it is one I am unlikely to use.

2) What would such an app need to have *at a minimum*?

It seems that, at minimum, it should list some books. That's all my current ap does, and I haven't killed it yet.

3) How important is a "full featured" app? (meaning it replicates much of what you can do on LT)

For me, not at all. I don't go to FaceBook to interact with the applications. I go to interact with the people. But there are many who do both.

4) An LT/Facebook app is interesting but if it could do ______ I would use it all the time.

"Feed updates without any interaction from me beyond the initial set up"

Because most of my interaction with FB is through the feed of my friend's activities, the most useful thing I could think of is an ap that would mine LT for my recent activity and post that. "Rob E. stopped reading Book X and gave it 5 stars." ; "Rob E. added 5 new books to his collection today. Click here to see what they were." ; "Rob E. reviewed Book Y today, click here to read the review." As others have mentioned, I'd want a fair bit of control to avoid inundating my friends with news that even I'm not that interested in.

For the way I use FB, that's the kind of information that would lure someone like me who does not yet use LT to the site, because if it doesn't show up in my friends' feeds, I don't usually see it.

But for those times that I do visit a friend's profile, and for those people who do it often, some things that might be nice:
1) the aforementioned lists of currently reading, recently read, recently added. Linked cover art would be very nice, and some version of the Time Line might add some visual bling.

It should be showy and informative, I think, and have at least some aspects that are centered firmly on the user who has installed it on their profile. That way the widget would work and look well regardless of whether the viewer was an LT account holder or not. And if it looked good and linked back to the LT page, you might snare some people.

2) For FB folks who are already LT folks, shared books would be nice, like you see when visiting their LT profile.

3) Catalog management: For the most part, this seems like a bad idea because it would be near impossible to make a FB ap with the functionality of the LT site, but there could be a more simplistic model for adding things to your catalog that would make a FB ap a little more interactive and encourage people to start using LT in a small way without requiring them to spend time on LT site, for folks who are disinclined to leave the FB page. Being able to view a friends feed or ap, see a title they like, and click it to add it their collection without being routed to the LT's Add Books page might give the ap some cataloging functionality within the FB setting. But it seems like for this to feasible, it would ideally add the information directly from LT's Works database. Any more complicated searching would be better off done from LT itself. In this way, the new LT users could start adding titles and so might be moved to join LT even if they didn't have to visit the site at first, but would hopefully end up going to LT itself for the more in depth features.

I've finally given up on waiting for an LT facebook application and starting using one of the other book apps instead. I feel like even if we do eventually get an LT app, it won't be as good as the currently-existing apps initially, and we'll end up having to wait another year for one that will actually appeal to people who aren't currently LT users. I just don't see the point anymore.

> 144

I'll probably also give up soon now, but for me what you wrote about "even if we do eventually get an LT app" doesn't hold, and I suspect that kind of thinking is one reason why there isn't one yet.

It seems a little like what LT is thinking of is the FB users who want to use a FB book application, and want to make the app they will choose over all the others. Then you'll think about flashy features. In the "Widgets got a lot better" blog post Tim wrote about "the crucial cover-animation code, something Mike's been working on for our upcoming Facebook application.

I think the answers in this thread make it clear that that's not what the current LT users who are waiting for a FB app are looking for. My answers to the four questions agree a lot with the most common answers here. 1) Yes; 2) List some books and link to LT; 3) Not at all; 4) Show currently reading in my FB feed.

I want to share currently reading with friends, but preferably in a way that at the same time non-obtrusively says "by the way, this is what I use for book cataloging on the net; you might want to check it out, especially if you trust my judgment." Low-hanging fruit, indeed!

1) Would you use an LT/Facebook app?
Yes, yes yes!

2) What would such an app need to have *at a minimum*?
I'm currently using weRead (previously known as iRead) so I guess it would have to do at least as much as that app does. That is, people can look at my books, ratings and reviews. I can tag books and (half-star) rate them. I can recommend books to specific people (known as "chuck a book")

3) How important is a "full featured" app? (meaning it replicates much of what you can do on LT)
It doesn't have to do EVERYTHING that LT does. But the basic things, yes. Particularly, it should have my own book covers, the ones we upload to LT and my tags, reviews and ratings. And statistics would be very very nice.

4) An LT/Facebook app is interesting but if it could do ______ I would use it all the time
Interactive activities - that would take advantage of the social aspect of Facebook. Most of my friends are on there but almost NONE of them are on LT. So I would like to be able to take advantage of that. Notifications are important - they should see on their news feed when I've just finished a book or rated or reviewed one because that's what generates conversation. That's something they can comment on and then we can talk about it. Some sort of book quiz/questionnaire would be nice that we could send to our friends and they could answer. Stuff like that - that more than one person can participate to.

1) Would you use an LT/Facebook app?
Probably, depending on functionality.

2) What would such an app need to have *at a minimum*?
Publish recently added books, reviews, ratings.

3) How important is a "full featured" app? (meaning it replicates much of what you can do on LT)
I would rather it skim data from my LT account and enter it on my Facebook page than the reverse.

4) An LT/Facebook app is interesting but if it could do ______ I would use it all the time.

Bascially what I would want is something similar to the Twittersync app
An application that would automatically Publish my LT doings to Facebook. Namely books added/rated/reviewed with a link back to the book page and LT in general.

Even if the application was more than this, as long as it included these functions I would use it.

An application that would automatically Publish my LT doings to Facebook. Namely books added/rated/reviewed with a link back to the book page and LT in general.
That would be great, agreed!

Is it still useful to give answers on these questions? Does someone at LT even read them?
I feel like everything has been already said 100 times. I personally would be happy with a basic app.

This endless discussion has created a lot of frustration. Some update from the team wouldn't harm.

I hope the developers do read these.
But, jbettinelli, I might be mistaken but I don't think anyone said the facebook platform is going to happen soon. As for what's the use of these questions - I remember Tim saying something like "since we're late anyway, we want to do it right when we eventually do it" so I would guess that means that a) these answers are quite important and b)FB it's not gonna happen in the immediate future. Let's wait for Collections first and then get all stressed about this.

Could someone explain what the advantages are to having LT on Facebook? I know I'm an olde fogey but I rarely use Facebook (I do use Linkedin for professional reasons) and don't really want to be associated with it for the most part. I think of Facebook as something for my kids to keep track of their friends and their activities. People my age don't have time for Facebook applications. But if there are valid reasons for doing what you suggest, I certainly won't stand in your way (as if I could anyway). I just don't want anyone to do anything with LT that would cheapen it in any way -- or make it even more available for those crazy kids who keep creating all the inane new groups on LT.

152 - if you don't use Facebook than there is no advantage to you, but you aren't the only user of LibraryThing. The advantage is a) it will make folks that use both happy and b) will market LibraryThing to others. Apparently you are worried you won't like some of those others, but that's really just your issue. (edited to add - we are probably in the same age group.)

150 - I think, but haven't read through in quite a while, that this is something that will happen post-Collections. As much as I'd like it now, I think it is a good idea to wait until Collections are up and de-bugged because I could see the lack of Collections a turnoff to someone just checking out LibraryThing. By that I mean if they poked around in Talk, they'd see the constant references to "Collections will solve your problems", "when are Collections coming" etc. that go back quite a while and think less of the site for how long it has taken and how so many things get answered with "after Collections" that they might not take the time to see that even as-is LibraryThing could be useful to them. I don't mean this as a criticism, while I will use LibraryThing more once collections is in place, it currently solves my primary problem. It is just how I tend to judge other sites and decide whether they are worthwhile at that moment.

>152 kageeh: You are generally right about the uses of Facebook, and the ability "to keep track of friends and their activities" is exactly why people want a Facebook app: to be able to keep track of their friends' book activities, such as what they read, review, like, dislike, buy, etc. And display this information of their own for others to see and be inspired by. Unfortunately I think it is partially your attitude (that is not unique) about not wanting the 'Facebook crowd' that ends up putting off the creation of a Facebook app :(

>153 mwade: I think I would rather have people check out LT and find it missing something that is 'coming soon' rather than not check it out at all. Especially since anyone here obviously thinks LT has some value even without collections.

Reading over my post, it certainly does sound rather obnoxious. I did not intend to put down people who use Facebook or even Facebook itself. What I am trying to find out is what would an LT application on Facebook bring to Facebook users that is not already available to anyone who accesses LT? Does that make more sense? Maybe I'm just too old. Lt itself fulfills just about everything I want or need -- except time to read everything I want to read.

kageeh, it's simple really: I have one person I know in "real life" on LT. I have around 100something on Facebook. All these people don;t use LT so I can't compare any book statistics with them or learn what they like, nor can they read my reviews or see what books I'm reading. But they COULD if there was a Facebook LT application.

>156 girlunderglass: Exactly.

Yes, I think for many of us, the primary purpose would actually be evangelism. I mean, I have a lovely LT widget on my web page, but I'm pretty sure no one visits it but me.

On the other hand, if I could get what is basically an LT widget onto Facebook (and possibly entries to my feed like "Deb has added a new book to her LibraryThing: The Language of Bees"), then I have a potential audience of 80 people who might then take a look at LT. Not to mention, my siblings and mother might have an idea what to get my for my birthday, if that addition happened to also say it had the tag wishlist. Or, I might make a few sales for one of my favorite authors, because people saw the book in my profile/feed.

>155 kageeh: - I'm afraid you are really missing the point. LT/FB integration will not be designed to add anything to LT. That's both pointless, and would upset everyone who wasn't on FB. Instead, the integration will be designed as a way of sharing your reading and book-purchasing habits with your non-LT friends. Not everyone wants that - fine. They don't need to use it (there are even some people who don't see the need of collections!) But there's a very definate gain for those who use FB.

I know I'm jumping in late, but...

1) Would you use an LT/Facebook app?

Definitely.

2) What would such an app need to have *at a minimum*?

1. _Automatic_ publication to my feed of:
a. Books added to my library
b. Reviews I've written
2. Display 'box' featuring some customizable combination of:
a. Currently Reading (either by checkbox or by 'reading' tag)
b. Recent additions
c. Recent reviews

3) How important is a "full featured" app? (meaning it replicates much of what you can do on LT)

Not very, I see the FB integration as primarily display/evangelism of activity taking place on LT.

4) An LT/Facebook app is interesting but if it could do ______ I would use it all the time.

Automatically and legally deposit a few hundred dollars a month into my bank account. ;)

I've come to think that what I really need is just the ability to publish stories from LT to Facebook. When I enter a finished date for a book, I'd like the option to publish a story to my newsfeed. This would be more convenient than using a separate FB application and would still provide lots of good advertising for LT.

I'm not convinced that people actually use FB applications on FB much anymore; the trend seems to be toward integration with the external websites. There are lots of book apps already on FB, but barely anyone among my friends ever updates their reading info there. On the other hand, people do respond to newsfeed stories. Both times I've published a boardgamegeek.com story about becoming a fan of a board game, I've noticed that one of my friends did the same shortly after (a different person each time).

So, I think you've missed the boat on the full-featured FB apps and should focus on letting us interact with FB from LT.

>161 _Zoe_:

This matches exactly with my observations at FB. I don't bother with Visual Bookshelf there anymore, and in fact am thinking of just removing it from my profile. Let me just pull over my items from LT and I'll be happy.

161/162> Yeah, I seem to have noticed that the launch of "New Facebook" last year and the subsequent shunting of most applications off the front page has, over time, resulted in (no surprise) fewer people using those applications. FB is well on its way (it seems) to evolving into a single Twitter-like stream of updates, wall posts, and comments. Zoe is right: interaction with the FB news feed is now key.

Also, I didn't realize BoardGameGeek interacted with FB now! I pretty much just log my played games and browse the game forums now on BGG. I'll have to look into that...

I agree with 161-163. an app that allowed me to show books recently added or recently reviewed as a new item would be perfect. GR allows you to check a box to publish a review to FB- simple and easy like that has my vote.

Just another voice in support of _Zoe_ at 161.

All I really want is the ability to have 'Monarchi just reviewed The Audacity of Hope on LibraryThing' appear on my facebook profile, with a link. And more integration with the FB fan page, please.

Now that collections have landed, is this any closer to being a reality?

I like the ability to post my LT reviews to Facebook. I have already got comments from my Facebook friends there.

I'm really hoping for similar integration for Date Read, though I know it's a long shot. That's what would get me advertising LT on FB the most, which I think is sort of the point.

I don't write reviews so I'd like to see more options for generation of Facebook posts - when adding or removing a book from my 'currently reading' collection and when assigning a rating would be top of my facebook integration wishlist.

I like it to post to Facebook when I add a book, and when I write a review. That would be enough for me, to start. If it also parsed Date Read and posted when I had finished a book, that would be a bonus.

I would like the option to choose what it posts to FB: add books, review, add to currently reading collection. Pretty simple.

After trying it once, I do not like how reviews can be posted to FB. It creates an overly large "link" post as opposed to "activity" or other simple post. Also, the link's title does not provide any personal connection that would entice a friend to see what I wrote. You have to follow the link to see that my review is sort of buried in the middle of the screen.

A good example of linked activity is Netflix which posts your movie ratings in a group of recent activity one-liners.

I agree with all of his statements (djwudi) except the 4th item.

I'd definitely like to evangelize LT as well as let my friends know what I'm reading, to stir some discussion on FB re: books of interest or controversy.

Currently reading would be the thing! Maybe with a comment field and status updates aka goodreads.

A Facebook feed link would be a nice way to get me to write more reviews and be more active on Library Thing. I love LT but I don't log in every day, or even every week. Knowing that people might actually read what I write would give me more incentive and might give some exposure to LT as well.

I've contemplated switching to Good Reads because of the Facebook link, so I would really like to have an LT link. I'd be a more frequent user.

At a library conference this summer, a librarian asked me if I used LT or Good Reads and could tell him a bit about it, because he wanted a place to list his books.

In the end, despite the fact that I talked up LT's community, work pages, collections, and other things, two things kept this librarian from wanting to come here: a way to deal with spoilers in reviews, and a lack of a Facebook presence.

He wanted to be able to share his LT activity with his network on Facebook, and he couldn't - I'm pretty sure we lost him to Good Reads.

this thread is from January of this year and I believe it was remarked by the LT staff that they have been working on things since before that. I am on FB on my desktop and with my iPhone even more now then ever before. I love that we can post our reviews to FB from LT, but it is time for more. Books that we are reading, rating and read. Purchasing, lending (DW just lent his book to TS) even if some of the items we report on FB do not record into the LT database.

I hate to think that we lost someone to Good Reads, but perhaps we can win them back when the FB applet is in use. I do have a question though after seven months of a discussion. What will an LT/FB app look like from the LT staff point of view. What might we expect in its first iteration? Or does the post of reviews count as the first iteration.

I didn't even realize that you could post your reviews to Facebook! (Or, more accurately, post a link to your review on Facebook.)

So... ?

This looks like a lost cause now.

Sad that no one at LT seems to care about what so many members have been asking for so long.

I do not think that we can assume that TPTB do not care about any specific issue simply because we see no progress on that issue.

>182 TheoClarke:
I agree. Look how long it took to get this feature which I thought would have been a no-brainer.

Edited to add missing word.

Tim said just a few days ago that they were working on more FB integration.

Yes, there was quite a bit of discussion about FB on this thread (more towards the end).

But still, a FB app is a "plan"

I am no expert, but I'd think a basic FB app would be quick to build. And definitely a quick win.

At the rate Tim is going lately, I wouldn't be surprised to see this next week.

And here is the clear evidence that Tim is thinking about Facebook:

A thread entitled What's the minimal FB feature-set?"

ETA fix imbecilic html