Google Play
Books Gets Discover Feature for Better Book Recommendations
Google Play Books is
rolling out a new feature that claims to offer better reading recommendations.
The feature is called Discover and is rolling out to Android, iOS, and the Web in 75
countries. Amazon's Kindle ebook service has had
personalised recommendations for a long time now, but Google Play Books tries
to go beyond just recommending books.
Discover
will surface books mentioned in an article while you're reading. If a book is
being made into a movie or if there are other stories around the book that Google's algorithms determine you
should read, then the app will suggest that you read them too.
There's
more to it too. While watching a video or reading an article, Discover will
pull out books mentioned in them. This will allow you to quickly read a sample
or even buy the books should you wish to.
Another
new feature is called Weekly Highlights. This appears to be Google's take on a
newsletter that lets you quickly catch up with all the important stories of the
week about the books you're interested in. Google claims this takes into
account trusted sources, which suggests that you won't be bombarded with
sub-par articles.
Finally,
the company has also launched Google Play Editorial where it will showcase
things like author interviews, essays by your favourite authors, and help you
find better books to read.
All
of these features sound like good additions to the Google Play Books service
but the big challenge remains competing with Amazon in the ebook market. Amazon
offers integration with Goodreads - arguably the world's most popular social
network for bibliophiles. Sadly the integration isn't really what it should be.
It doesn't go beyond a small button in the Kindle app and even on Amazon's
ebook readers the integration doesn't offer more than basic book
recommendations.
Google
hopes to leverage its algorithms to help you find better books and fill the
gaps left by Amazon's ebook service. However, will this be enough to make
people switch over? Perhaps not, but it could make more people use Google Play
Books.
Access Link | http://gadgets.ndtv.com/apps/news/google-play-books-gets-discover-feature-for-better-book-recommendations-1464289
Regards
Pralhad Jadhav
Senior Manager @ Library
Khaitan & Co
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