# Tinder for Books?



## Philip Overby (Mar 22, 2015)

I don't know if I'm just making this idea up or something like it exists (if it does, please point me to it because I think it could be useful in some capacity), but there's this site called Tinder a friend showed me where you can browse potential people you're interested in by "swiping" them the right. If you're not interested, you swipe to the left. If the people both "swipe" each other, then you can exchange information. It seems kind of a shallow way to meet people, but there it is. I was wondering, what if there was some service that did this with book covers? 

I'm sure there must be something like this out there, but I could be wrong. 

Basically, when you're ready to browse for a book, you input things just like you would on a dating site, but instead of gender, orientation, age, hobbies, etc. you would put price, length, genre, etc.

Then as you're searching this site, you would check out book covers first. If the book cover interested you, then you'd swipe it to the right. If it didn't, you swipe it to the left. Then after you've "swiped" the books you're interested in for that session, you'll go to some kind of "narrow down" page. Here you can read blurbs about the book and further eliminate those you're not interested in. 

This process could go on to chapter samples or whatever else, but the general idea is to "judge a book by its cover" and then continue to browse that way. Maybe there would even be a way to search by star ratings on Amazon or something. I know Amazon has something similar to this with the "Betterizer," so maybe I'm way off course. 

I just find that often when I'm looking for books on Amazon, especially fantasy ones, I find myself looking at covers first. If something piques my interest, then I go on to the next stage of reading the blurb. Maybe this kind of method or site idea could allow you to browse loads and loads of book covers quickly.

Anyway just thinking out loud. I was just thinking this could be a way to easily browse books and eliminate those you're not interested in. Maybe it's too convoluted, I don't know.


----------



## skip.knox (Mar 22, 2015)

I like the idea. Right now, we read a book and rate it, which means there's only the one general opinion of N stars. If I'm envisioning your vision properly  I would enter the book in stages, much as I do anyway. Each step forward--I like the cover, I like the description, I like the first page, the first chapter, half way through and I'm still reading--would go toward the overall score of the book.

OK, go write the algorithm. When you're done, I'll invest five bucks.


----------



## Philip Overby (Mar 22, 2015)

Yeah, I suck at stuff like that. I was hoping someone who was a computer whiz would hire me as a consultant or some shit. 

I do think the idea to rate each aspect of the book would go a long way towards helping people whittle their book pile down and find what they're look for. Based on other people's votes they could see "Oh, the cover got 85 percent (likes) and the blurb got 67 percent" etc. etc. go down the line.


----------



## Svrtnsse (Mar 22, 2015)

You could call it Kindler.


----------



## FarmerBrown (Apr 1, 2015)

Saw this today...

"Announcing KINDLR, the New Goodreads Dating App!"

https://www.goodreads.com/blog/show...=facebook&utm_medium=blog&utm_campaign=kindlr

Except I'm 99% sure it's an April Fool's Joke   I'm not very good at jokes.


----------



## Philip Overby (Apr 1, 2015)

That would be awesome to match people by their book preferences.


----------

