Got an invite to closed beta, which involves installing an app. Weird Terms of Use. Includes the bit:
YOU SHALL NOT USE ANY THIRD PARTY CONTENT IN CONNECTION WITH THE APP WHICH IS
OFFENSIV,
DEFAMATORY,
LIBELOUS,
OBSCENE,
PORNOGRAFIC,
SEXIST,
RACIST,
FALSE OR MISLEADING,
OTHERWISE ILLEGAL, UNLAWFUL OR IMMORAL.
Um. Does this mean "no reading erotica ebooks?" (Also: non-proofread TOS. Bad sign for serious company.
Also, no sexism or racism, but homophobia is fine? Or is that covered under "offensiv?" If I've got time, I may send the an email asking what they consider "offensiv," "pornografic," and "immoral."
Their iThing app is downloaded through rink.hockeyapp.net, not the iStore. Hmm. Installed app has no favicon; weird. Username can be 3 letters (yay!); "real name," a required field, has to be more than that.
Dashboard is a creepy (to me) setup where I apparently see EVERYTHING EVERYONE ELSE IS READING. (Maybe that's only the stuff they post publicly. I'll play with settings later.) It's unclear whether everyone can read everyone else's books; it looks like maybe not.
The library starts out with 2 books in it: "An Introduction to dotdotdot" and Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig. (They get points for that; I love Free Culture.) I uploaded an epub, read a couple of pages... sure enough, it shows up on the global dashboard. Dayamn. It allows upload of epubs; says "50mb limit." No idea if that's per ebook or total. Also allows browsing of internet texts (blog posts etc.); no idea how that works either. (Don't I have pinboard for that? Or Google reader? Not seeing that this is *better* than a linked rec list somewhere, except maybe that I can highlight & share passages. Which is only useful if they get over a certain activity level.)
There is no "contact us" option. Anywhere. And once you've logged into the app, you can't get back to the intro page without logging out.
Conclusion: Interesting app in beta. If they don't offer a privacy option, it's going to fritter out; damn near nobody wants to share ALL their reading with a swarm of total strangers, and damn near nobody wants an app for public reading and somewhere else for other reading. If they offer privacy, it could catch on.
Business implementation: new and somewhat buggy. Another "if you build it, they will come" website, with a premise with some promise, but they'll need to be responsive and on top of legal issues to be successful. Invisible mods who ban people who break unclear rules would kill their momentum.
Received beta account.
YOU SHALL NOT USE ANY THIRD PARTY CONTENT IN CONNECTION WITH THE APP WHICH IS
- OFFENSIV,
- DEFAMATORY,
- LIBELOUS,
- OBSCENE,
- PORNOGRAFIC,
- SEXIST,
- RACIST,
- FALSE OR MISLEADING,
- OTHERWISE ILLEGAL, UNLAWFUL OR IMMORAL.
Um. Does this mean "no reading erotica ebooks?" (Also: non-proofread TOS. Bad sign for serious company.Also, no sexism or racism, but homophobia is fine? Or is that covered under "offensiv?" If I've got time, I may send the an email asking what they consider "offensiv," "pornografic," and "immoral."
Their iThing app is downloaded through rink.hockeyapp.net, not the iStore. Hmm. Installed app has no favicon; weird. Username can be 3 letters (yay!); "real name," a required field, has to be more than that.
Dashboard is a creepy (to me) setup where I apparently see EVERYTHING EVERYONE ELSE IS READING. (Maybe that's only the stuff they post publicly. I'll play with settings later.) It's unclear whether everyone can read everyone else's books; it looks like maybe not.
The library starts out with 2 books in it: "An Introduction to dotdotdot" and Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig. (They get points for that; I love Free Culture.) I uploaded an epub, read a couple of pages... sure enough, it shows up on the global dashboard. Dayamn. It allows upload of epubs; says "50mb limit." No idea if that's per ebook or total. Also allows browsing of internet texts (blog posts etc.); no idea how that works either. (Don't I have pinboard for that? Or Google reader? Not seeing that this is *better* than a linked rec list somewhere, except maybe that I can highlight & share passages. Which is only useful if they get over a certain activity level.)
There is no "contact us" option. Anywhere. And once you've logged into the app, you can't get back to the intro page without logging out.
Conclusion: Interesting app in beta. If they don't offer a privacy option, it's going to fritter out; damn near nobody wants to share ALL their reading with a swarm of total strangers, and damn near nobody wants an app for public reading and somewhere else for other reading. If they offer privacy, it could catch on.
Business implementation: new and somewhat buggy. Another "if you build it, they will come" website, with a premise with some promise, but they'll need to be responsive and on top of legal issues to be successful. Invisible mods who ban people who break unclear rules would kill their momentum.