bootload posted a photo:

Taking on Amazon book reviews
‘… But what they don’t have is any sort of discussion/feedback or anything else beyond getting the summary itself …’
Amazon does this. It was the subject of that great book (Amazonia, Five Years at the Epicenter of the Dot.Com Juggernaut ~ http://tinyurl.com/364d9f ) and tells the story of Bezos hiring employee #55, ‘James Marcus’ as book editor asking him … "how many 100 word reviews can you write in x minutes?" - The implication being he wanted to find ways to scale reviews beyond employees writing 100 word reviews.
"…. why do computer users take time away from their own lives and work to help people around the world whom they don’t even know? …"
Now your ’stab’ at this has a good chance of doing better, if you can solve the problem of why people write free documentation (supply) and allow the creation of something that people want to read (demand). The reviews at Amazon are ‘ok’ but lack follow-up. There’s a great article I found on "Why Do People Write Free Documentation?" and some conclusions after asking a questionnaire that might answer some questions you have on this ~ http://www.onlamp.com/lpt/a/7062
As for the site, I like it. Signed up, got an account & checked a title, modified my bio. Pretty easy. Found the book I searched for ( http://tinyurl.com/34dsnb ) So if I write comments, add comments can I consume this data? Use it beyond going to a page? What I would like to see (more of) is
- choice of licenses (creative commons) to release any writing
- access to rss, atom feeds, collective & personal OR an API to query data
- access to stats on the books & reviews (titles, who wrote what, how many words)
All of which allow you to not only add to the site but add to the value of the data by consuming it in your own blogs, products etc.
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Original post by bootload and software by Elliott Back