I've wanted this for a long time. Definitely using this for the next book I read. Hey @ben_chow, how can I make this work with my paper books? Hahah, nice work!
@shanev There is a camera icon at the top left of the add screen. If you tap that you can take a picture of a paper book highlight.
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@shanev I use it with paper books. Actually, I even go as far as copying out sections of paper books by hand into a notebook, then take a pic and upload on Booklights O_O :)
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This looks interesting. I like the idea of sharing snippets of books. However your site and iTunes description aren't shedding any light on the *how* for me. Maybe I'm missing something, but just giving some feedback here. Having spent a minute or two trying to find out what sort of workflow would happen here (integrated into my reading flow, or a separate flow I have to go through each time?).
I đź’Ż believe people want to share highlights of books, but it needs to be frictionless, so it all comes down to execution. Interested to hear how this works.
@fredrivett thanks for pointing this out, this is great feedback! We put that information in the onboarding flow but communicating "the how" upfront will definitely help people make a decision to try.
To answer your question, we use screenshots so all you need to do is take a screen shot of your book page and we'll import it automatically in the app. If you're reading a hardcover, you can take a photo in within the app.
Our goal was to build off what people are already doing and taking screenshots is quick and something people are doing. It also means you don't have to change your existing reading flow.
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Reading the highlights here make me feel smart! Way better use of my time than reading my FB feed. :)
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Hi,
It looks promising, but missing quite a lot on the social front. Here are my initial thoughts, which may or may not be in your plan.
1. Usernames instead of http://booklights.us/users/1
2. Web profiles, instead of being app-only.
3. Ability to comment and share via web.
4. Stars/likes/bookmark highlights.
5. Search (search books, tags, quotes)
6. I'm not a fan of the only way to highlight is through screenshots.
7. Actualize and remember what you read - It will be helpful to have dates.
I'm still grieving over Readmill's demise, so if you're familiar with Readmill, their highlights were the best!
@kenna thanks! what did you like about readmill? unfortunately i did not use it before. is there an email i can reach you at?
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I love the idea of sharing my book highlights and discovering new books that others found useful, but a sharing process that involves taking a picture of my kindle is a bit too cumbersome if you have a lot of highlights (as I usually do!).
My current process is:
Read on kindle paperwhite, highlight interesting text, use clippings.io to extract highlights from my amazon kindle account and then export from clippings.io to my evernote.
This would be great if it was possible to sync from my amazon kindle account, clippings.io or evernote.
@pdffy oh did not know about clippings.io - have to take a look at that. Yes, we recognize that taking a picture or highlight is a bit too cumbersome. We are looking into other ways of performing syncing.
Hey guys! Ming here. We built Booklights because we read a lot of great books, and we always wanted a way to do much more with what we read, instead of being excited for one second, then just forgetting about it like college textbooks. :D By sharing highlights of our learnings it helped us remember and actualize what we read, while helping our friends and followers easily track what we are reading.
On the larger picture, we feel that books have largely been neglected in the mainstream tech and culture narrative, and there is the prevailing notion that people do not read anymore, and that they dont have the attention span. Innovation and investment has been largely in the ephemeral and video spaces. On our end, we continue to see books thriving in our networks and we continue to be amazed at the transformative power books can have on someone's mental model and perspective.
As such, we want to do our part to help make it easier for book lovers to share their love for books and to connect with one another. We aim to make reading an activity that is as widely shared as game of thrones. ;)
Here are some of my highlights from recent books I have read:
Nir Eyal's Hooked: http://booklights.us/users/1/boo...
Kamal Ravikant's Rebirth: http://booklights.us/users/1/boo...
The rest of my books here: http://booklights.us/users/1/
Thanks for all the amazing support guys - we are just getting started in this space, and any feedback, help or encouragement is greatly appreciated!
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