Leafmarks: New Book Site/series-tracking social book site

[BearMountainBooks]

Came across a new site for readers that is basically a lot like GR and LibraryThing. It's new, so I've found it slow to use at times (not enough servers?) and a lot of features are still being added. A lot of books don't have book covers showing yet.

I don't know who owns or operates Leafmarks, but it appears to be privately owned, quite possibly one of about two that aren't Amazon owned?

Here's a link:

https://www.leafmarks.com/

I imported my books from GR using their export to cvs and it worked perfectly. I'm not sure I need another site, but it doesn't have ads (yet?) and it seems well-organized.

[GERGE]

Only reason I use this things are recommendations. How are they?

[latepaul]

Looks like I signed up to this about a year ago, did an import and haven't done much since. I did that with Booklikes and Librarything too

Looks like a nice site but not many people on there yet.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by GERGE

Only reason I use this things are recommendations. How are they?

I don't know. I just joined this weekend and spent the time importing from GR and playing around uploading my avatar. I have one blog follower who joined and friended me and I don't know if that causes/changes what recommendations I will see. Let me go look and see what is what because I haven't even looked for that tab yet.

[BearMountainBooks]

Quick glance: There are rec buttons so when I add something to a shelf (for example I just added Monster International by Larry Correia and I can recommend that to someone) and there are tags/cloud type things. So, if I shelf it under "fantasy" I think that means something. I'm not sure what, but something about the visibility and when others also categorize and rate the book. I can see how others have marked the book to the right (awesome, fantasy, urban fantasy, to read, and so on).

If I figure out more, I shall report back.

[BearMountainBooks]

I asked one of the librarians over that LM about recs:

EDITED: This is the GR link. Sorry. I will try to get the LM for my next act...duh. Something was lost in the translation of the question!
Here is the link to http://goodreads.com/recommendations in case it was either hidden on his home page or he hadn't rated enough books to get recommendations. And different folk have different opinion if any good or not.



LM Info:

Okay, edited to add the LM rec stuff:

No site recommendation algorithm yet. Pending some other features like "next in series", groups, genres ... and probably some more ratings of books to get an idea of an algorithm. You can recommend individual books and under "Community" there's a recommendation feature that is just reader-to-reader where you can get or give recommendations.

There is a place to make a rec if you write a review or do stars. I believe that is where, if we are friends, I add your name and then you get some notification that I sent a rec. For all I know, it may send out recs to someone even if we aren't friends. I didn't test.

There is probably/apparently/maybe something called metadata where you can enter genre info or the like (GR also has this, but I didn't know it) and some tags. On GR it's also on the review tab down in the lower right corner. You click that and can enter whether the book is first person, fantasy or whatnot, tags for the subject matter (witches, detectives, whatever).

On LM and GR, filling out the metadata may or may not help with the recommendation process. I can't FIND the metadata on LM to add it to a book I just finished so I'm a little lost there.

But apparently if you aren't seeing recs you like, part of it may be because you don't fill out metadata, at least on GR. I tested it and you can fill out metadata on GR WITHOUT leaving a review. You just click like you are going to do a review and then find the metadata thing in the lower right, and fill out if you care to.

If I find it on LM, I'll let you know. It's probably staring right at me, but I tend to throw a few words into the review bucket to remind me about a book and not spend a lot of time browsing around.

Edited to add: One other thing I like about LM is that it lets me leave half stars. I can also mark a book for multiple shelves. So I can put the book in fantasy and urban fantasy. I can put it in mystery and cozy and so on. This is helpful to me. There are no sub-category listings that I can figure out.

[BearMountainBooks]

Here's some more information from one of the LM librarians:

On Leafmarks, on the top menu click "Community" then click "Recommendations" on the drop menu.

You can create his own requests-for-recommendations (buckets) and share them out to the feed whenever he feels like it (by clicking "ask again." Others can even vote on how much they think a recommendation fits what he requests.

Under the community ones, you can see what recommendations others have asked for.

On a book page, right above purchase links, there is a "thumbs up" you can click to say he would recommend that book.

What Leafmarks doesn't have is some sort of algorithm where the site recommends books or a "let us pick your next book" feature (not sure if planned).

In the groups/discussion-rooms/bookclubs/forums (or whatever terminology that particular site uses), there are threads for recommending books, for buddy reads (people interested in reading same book together even if not formally voted as the group's book of the month read), penpals (a variety of "games" where someone picks a book for you, usually from one of your bookshelves you specify or by criteria you specify or by books in common), etc. On Leafmarks that's also under Community and called "Groups" -- honestly, particularly compared to longer-established groups like amazon.com and goodreads have, the Leafmarks groups and group features are in their infancy. On goodreads, the activity for groups you belong to are under the "discussions" tab or "Explore Groups" on the main menu.

[peachiekene]

One thing I like is the ability to do your own challenges. Goodreads has the yearly challenge, which is nice, but if you re-read then you manually have to change the read date to the most recent one for it to count.
Leafmarks allows you to just tag it with your own challenge and it will count even if the date is "wrong".

I did sign up last year and use it a bit, but I still use GR as a homebase because it's easier (even with the issues I have with them).

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by peachiekene

One thing I like is the ability to do your own challenges. Goodreads has the yearly challenge, which is nice, but if you re-read then you manually have to change the read date to the most recent one for it to count.
Leafmarks allows you to just tag it with your own challenge and it will count even if the date is "wrong".

I did sign up last year and use it a bit, but I still use GR as a homebase because it's easier (even with the issues I have with them).

I think it depends on what and how you use such a site. GR definitely has more functionality at the moment, but that's not what I need. I don't miss the ads, especially since GR started putting "sponsored ads" in my newsfeed that mimic a post made by a friend who has finished a book! I know they gotta make money and I know the old ads weren't working, but yanno.

[peachiekene]

I forgot about the "sposered ads" in the news feed. I HATE that.

For me GR is easier because more people use it.
I do like LM better, they just don't have the userbase (yet).

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by peachiekene

I forgot about the "sposered ads" in the news feed. I HATE that.

For me GR is easier because more people use it.
I do like LM better, they just don't have the userbase (yet).

Totally concur. LM needs a lot more covers to be loaded because they are loading from Ingram, I think. So it's not exactly automated. I'm not sure how GR did it/does it. GR needs to lose those sponsored ads, but I think they went to that because ad blocker stops most of their ads. I didn't realize that until my ad blocker was down one day. WOW. GR is UGLY without ad blocker running!

[Ravensknight]

I use Leafmarks as a backup review site mainly because I like the fact that I can export my reviews into a spreadsheet file.
Small group, but seems to be growing and considering that I'm not Mr. Social, small is good in my books.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by Ravensknight

I use Leafmarks as a backup review site mainly because I like the fact that I can export my reviews into a spreadsheet file.
Small group, but seems to be growing and considering that I'm not Mr. Social, small is good in my books.

Don't tell anyone, but that's one of the things I like about it! It's not crowded and there's no drama or shouting. A few good conversations about a book or two that I can peek in on when I'm looking for a read.

[Ravensknight]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

Don't tell anyone, but that's one of the things I like about it! It's not crowded and there's no drama or shouting. A few good conversations about a book or two that I can peek in on when I'm looking for a read.

Yep, I get my fill of book social'ness at Booklikes. I doubt I could handle it if I had to stretch myself over 2 booksites...

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by Ravensknight

Yep, I get my fill of book social'ness at Booklikes. I doubt I could handle it if I had to stretch myself over 2 booksites...

I think I probably joined that one at one time too, but I am not active at all on there, LibraryThing or ...what is that other Amazon one. Not GR. The other one. I forget what it is called.

I'm most social here and don't have much time for any other forums anyway. Of course, now when I'm looking for a cozy that isn't too cozy, that has great humor but isn't chicklit, I have no one to ask, but there you go!