Social Media for Book Lovers? Skeptical…

We’ll see how Litsy does in capturing book-oriented conversations.

I just got this new app called Litsy, which is a social media network revolving around the reading experience.

I am skeptical.

Let me be clear: I have not used this app for very long, and so do not want to pass judgement on it. I hated Twitter for ages, but now I get it and have found the parts of it that I really love. There’s no reason Litsy couldn’t overcome my initial skepticism.

However, here’s why I have reservations…

The founders of the app said:

We realised that there’s a really passionate conversation that happens face-to-face with readers that wasn’t necessarily captured digitally.

And the same article has a pretty good description of what the service is:

Users are allowed to post 300-character comments, quotes, or reviews, along with a related image. The app is also connected to an extensive book database, which allows you to look up a specific work’s “profile,” read others’ reviews of it, and add it to your “to-read” list if it catches your fancy.

In a way, I like the format. It definitely has a setup that recognizes the shorter time periods and focus on imagery we give to social media posts, unlike Goodreads or even Facebook which tend to have loads of rants I’m just not interested in when I log on there.

But then, does that capture the conversation people have about books? Frankly, I can’t see how it does. When I talk about books, at least, the pleasure of it is digging into the nuance of the reading experience, the details that books bring which almost no other medium can.

A few weeks ago I was at AWP and walking through Runyon Canyon with a friend, and we got into Tolkien. He’s a big fan. I am happy I read Lord of the Rings in high school, have a lot of respect for the work, but never really need to go back to reading that sort of thing. We got into this at the top of the canyon, and kept the conversation going all the way downhill, talking about everything from prose style to plot points to the worth of Tom Bombadil (personally, I’m on team Tom). By the time we finished, we’d descended to street-level Hollywood, and the sun had set.

That’s a passionate lit conversation. Probably the kind Litsy’s founders saw and wanted to capture online.

But, that can’t be done in 300 characters plus a picture.

What I’m hoping for in Litsy is a different kind of conversation. Not necessarily superficial, but short, and hopefully not pretending to be anything more than it is. I don’t think an iPhone app could capture the kind of great conversations I’ve had about books, but maybe it can be something else. Supplementary, perhaps? I don’t know. I’ll see as I use it.

Update to follow…