Shelfari

Growth and Growing Pains

What an amazing week it's been.  With the announcement of Shelfari on Facebook, Mashable listing us in the top 10 most beautiful sites, CNET reviewing us, and some crazy dudes on Metafilter spending their morning debating our pros and cons, we've had a lot of traffic and a LOT of new registrations.  Welcome everyone.  We love you.

I've asked KevinD a couple of times today what our CPU usage was, and while its certainly not peaking, it's definitely nudging northward.  We noticed yesterday that as thousands of people started importing their contact lists to find friends on Shelfari and invite them, that we had not fully optimized that code and for a few hours we had a sluggish importing process.  We got it fixed and updated, but it was a bit frustrating for a few users (including us).

We're quite mindful of performance issues especially since our friends at the handy book cataloging service LibraryThing had their site down for the better part of five days last month.  Even with record-breaking page view numbers on Shelfari, thanks to the dynamic duo of KevinB and KevinD we were nowhere near that kind of a meltdown.  But we know that massive growth requires investing.  We've already invested in the architecture that will scale.  Josh and Kevin made the difficult decision a few months back to make behind-the-scenes improvements that will make success beautiful, not crushing.  While I (Dave the marketing guy) fretted over that decision, I'm very pleased now.

Hopefully we'll have a big server-shucking party, and our Seattle Shelfari fans can join in.  :)

--Dave

We love you too

Some bloggers out there have been super kind to us today, so we thought we'd mention some here.  Send us your reviews and we'll gladly do a follow up post.   

“it’s built around a medium I adore: books. Books, books, and more books. And it’s gorgeous, too!”
Profy

In reference to the Mashable 10 Most Beautiful Social Network: “And oh yes, while I am already on some of the top 10, I am so joining Shelfari.”
Bruce Reyes-Chow

“Shelfari has become my latest obsession….  My favorite part of the site, though, is the groups. I belong to one for AP English teachers, and I think I've finally found a bunch of people who are as Book-Geeky as me.”
Words from a Dancing Fool

“Y'ever heard of SHELFARI?  Go join it. Seriously. This means you, brother-o-mine. ;-) And letterlady too. And the rest of ya'll. It's fun and useful. And you'll like it too.”
Incertus

“Out of all of the Web 2.o library applications that we covered this week, Shelfari is probably my favorite.”
Swiss Dairy Constabulary

--Dave

 

Shelfari Loves Facebook

We've been finishing our Facebook Application this week, and we're finally ready for prime time.  It knits together the best of Shelfari with Facebook's fantastic network features.  Shelfari users can link their accounts and have all of your book show up in Facebook.  Then every time you add a book, rating or review on Facebook, it shows up on Shelfari.com and vice versa. 

The team pushed really hard to get this done in three weeks, so hats off to them.  Hopefully we'll start blogging more now that we're live.

I'm getting a bit sleepy, so I'll paste our press release below.

Good night!

--Dave

New Shelfari Application Enables Facebook Members to Share Their Reading Lists, Discover New Books and Authors, and Participate in a Growing Community of Book Lovers

SEATTLE, WA – July 10, 2007 – Shelfari, the leading social media site for book lovers, today announced a new application for Facebook members designed to let them easily rate, review and share their books with Facebook friends and connect with one another via their love of literature. Unlike the majority of Facebook book applications that were built by independent software developers as “siloed” communities, the Shelfari Facebook application connects with the vibrant community of Shelfari.com and enables users to connect their book activity within Facebook to the deep book-centered world on Shelfari.com.

Facebook application users can view all their books on a virtual bookshelf, import books already added on Shelfari.com, rate and review their books, and share those ratings and reviews automatically through Facebook’s personal newsfeeds.  They also can view the rich book information and discussions from Shelfari without leaving Facebook. To use the Shelfari application, Facebook members can go to: http://apps.facebook.com/shelfari/ or search for “Shelfari” directly from the Facebook applications directory.

“The Facebook Platform represents a seismic shift in the way people are using social networks to express themselves and new applications like Shelfari’s will enable Facebook members to instantly engage with a large community of readers,” said Josh Hug, Shelfari’s CEO and co-founder. “The Shelfari application is unique because it not only enables Facebook members to quickly share their reading lists but it also provides an avenue of exploration via the Shelfari site which is deeper than what can be provided by an independent third party developer whose applications are disconnected from a larger, vertically-oriented community.”

Launched in October 2006, Shelfari is one of the fastest growing vertically oriented social media sites on the Internet. With tens of thousands of bibliophiles already registered on the free site, Shelfari represents a vibrant community of readers who actively participate and express themselves through their passion for books. The Shelfari application for Facebook will further extend this community and enable Facebook members to explore and discover an entirely new landscape of books, authors, and fellow readers.

Somebody thinks we're pretty

There was a lot of talk about Shelfari in the blogosphere today, so we came up for air and were very pleased.  Among the stories, our friends over at Mashable included Shelfari in 10 Most Beautiful Social Networks.  We blushed.

I know that the team has always tried to make a simple, clean, view for the community, that's pleasing, robust and simple to use.  The aim is not technology for technology's sake, but rather imprinting technology on the human experience.  We know we have a ways to go to really make that a reality in our little corner of the web, but we're so pleased that Stan showed us some love.

Other notable sites on the list included Virb and my site of the week Pownce.  I keep getting invites to Pownce, so it must be the service for me. 

Kudos for Shelfari's design go to Tim Gray.  Thanks Tim.

--Dave