Tech Table Wednesday, July 9, 2014
July 9, 2014
Justin: Welcome to MPA’s Tech Table. I’m Justin.
Diana: And I’m Diana.
Justin: And we’re your hosts. We’ll be serving up a heaping spoonful of all things tech.
Diana: We promise it’ll be easy to digest.
Diana: Well hello there Justin, it is Wednesday.
Justin: Hello Diana. If I sound a little different today my allergies are driving me crazy, which is odd, I don’t usually have midsummer allergies.
Diana: I just feel like a lot of people are having allergies year round now.
Justin: Right. Yeah, well it’s true. I mean, usually, you know, I have headaches…that’s a sign of my allergies. And I never know. I mean, sometimes it’s just husband headaches is what I call them.
Diana: Oh…oh yeah, well wives get those too.
Justin: Oh, do they?
Diana: Yes. I think more frequently.
Justin: Oh, well okay then, I guess you might be right about that. But I know that, anyway, I have a headache and it wont go away and I feel kind of stuffed up…unpleasant. So we’re gonna talk today about summer reading.
Diana: Yes, what’s one of my favorite pastimes.
Justin: Yes, you enjoy a good book, or a great book.
Diana: A great book.
Justin: Yes, it can’t just be good.
Diana: No, no we want great books.
Justin: There are a lot of great books out there.
Diana: That’s true.
Justin: And so we have five websites that can help you find something new to read.
Diana: So there is whatshouldireadnext.com. It reads just like that…what should I read next dot com.
Justin: Yeah.
Diana: When you visit the home page there is a gray box with a white box inside of it. Start typing an author’s name or a title of a book in the box, and as you type, the site will actually try to figure out what you are typing. And then once you see it in the list, click on the name or title, and you’ll be given the list of recommendations.
Justin: Cool.
Diana: It’s kind of like iTunes Genius.
Justin: Right, yeah, and you can sign up to create your own list. And so, all these book recommendations on the site are made by real people.
Diana: Cool.
Justin: Which is kind of cool.
Diana: Yeah.
Justin: Alright, of course amazon.com has gotten really big into the eBook market. I remember when you used to buy real books from them. Now everyone buys eBooks for their Kindles and their other tablets.
Diana: Yes, yes.
Justin: But all you have to do is type in a title in Amazon’s search bar, and then you visit the page for that book or auther, which authors now have whole pages of their books on Amazon. And you know, based on what you search and what you like, Amazon will recommend other items. And then, also, what other people have bought that buy that same title. So they use a whole bunch of different algorithms and get you a book recommendation that way.
Diana: Right, and of course, Amazon also has a large number of reviews for almost every single one of their book titles.
Justin: That’s right.
Diana: So that’s helpful. Now there’s another site here we’re gonna talk about, librarything.com. It’s an online book club. You can sign up for free, and you can list up to 200 books that you like, that you own or have read, and find other members with common interests. And if you want to list more than 200 books, there is a small fee.
Justin: Yeah, that’s interesting. Yeah, but it’s an online book club. That sounds like fun. Then there’s goodreads.com, which is another online book club, with free membership. And Goodreads…also, there’s an annual Goodreads Choice Awards that brings the best books up for the whole club every year.
Diana: Okay, cool, cool. And finally, we promised five, there’s yournextread.com, and it’s a hip graphical interface. You type in a book name, or click on a book title, and a flow chart of other books actually appears in front of you.
Justin: Wow.
Diana: Your Next Read seems to have fewer recommendations than the other services, but it’s pretty cool to look at.
Justin: Well it’s especially good if you’re indecisive and you just need a few recommendations.
Diana: [LAUGHS] Yeah, yeah.
Justin: So that’s pretty cool. So read a little bit this summer. It’s a nice thing to do on the beach, a nice thing to do just on your back porch. You know, read a good title. Until next time…
Diana: Take care.
Justin: Tech Table was brought to you by MPA of Bloomfield, Iowa, and God’s Country Radio. You can visit us online at askmpa.com.
Diana: If you have questions or comments, please send them to questions@askmpa.com. That’s questions@askmpa.com
Justin: And thanks for listening!
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