Ted Leung on the air: Open Source, Java, Python, and ...
I have an affinity for long (and sometimes long-winded) science-fiction and fantasy books. A few days ago, I accidentally discovered that the 11th book in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, Knife of Dreams, was released. I would love it if there were a way to get an RSS feed that contained announcements of new Robert Jordan titles. Bonus points for a 1-click kind of interface that takes me to my favorite library or bookseller when a new entry hits the feed. And we're at it, do the same thing for musical artists and movies. If content producers want to sell it, they need to tell me about it, and RSS would be a lot more direct than TV.
The other end of this is that I use the local public library a lot. Jon Udell's library lookup bookmarklets are useful for checking to see if books are in the library, but I would love to have support for the entire "discover a book, get it from the library, return it" lifecycle. A web service that let me access my library account information would be great.
Posted by Gus Mueller at Mon Oct 31 14:20:47 2005
The idea was to have a webpage that would aggregate different aspects of the "workflow" for watching movies: see what movie news, make wishlists, pick movies you can see now, rate/review movies you've seen.
Movies you can see now would be aggregated from various sources: TV, rental, your local theaters, some download sites,...
Movies are actually harder than books, because afaik they don't have universal IDs, unlike ISBNs for books.
I think such an app would be awesome for personal use, but there might also be some potential for social use: what if you can share your reviews/ratings in a privacy-conscient way (like LOAF does for sharing your contacts)?
Posted by Julien Couvreur at Mon Oct 31 16:26:03 2005
Also, have you tried the Frugal Reader book exchange?
Posted by DeanG at Mon Oct 31 17:27:58 2005
I think a lot of bands have started to "get" the Internet and understand how it lets them communicate with their fans. I haven't noticed as much progress from authors on that front.
Posted by COD at Mon Oct 31 18:46:11 2005
When you open an Amazon book page, the script checks the availability in your library and displays it inline.
The same thing could be extended to ISBNs anywhere on the web (SmartTag-style).
Posted by Julien Couvreur at Mon Oct 31 20:04:19 2005
I hope so...
Julien,
I have Jon's bookmarkelets, but have yet to really get into Greasemonkey scripts (I have it installed)
DeanG,
Clearly this is something you'd like to do in an app like Chandler
No, I haven't tried the Frugal Reader book exchange.
Posted by Ted Leung at Mon Oct 31 22:23:23 2005
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