roberthewitt's blog
About Bob
Fri, 02/16/2007 - 20:25 — roberthewittBob here, the Founder and Managing Member of FYS, welcoming you to the FYS blog.
To your right I tossed a few books from my shelf, along with some mini-reviews as a teaser. In order to see my entire shelf go to your library (create your shelf first) and in the field labeled "Visit Friend's Shelf" type my user name: Bob.(There you can rearrange my rated books by 'rating' to see my favorites or 'order read' to see what I've just finished. Click UNREAD BOOKS to see what I've got lined up; what I'm currently reading is green, books I've quit are red, the rest of my 'to read' list' is brown.)
As you know, our baby is still in Beta, which means that it's a work-in-progress. Expect some bugs. I'll be using this blog to keep you up to speed with everything we're doing to fix them, improve user-experience and broaden our user base. Feel free to comment on any of these posts. All feedback is welcome and appreciated.
August 19th - Bookswap @ The Dram Shop
Tue, 08/19/2008 - 19:39 — roberthewitt
If you live in Brooklyn and you haven't checked out the Dram Shop yet, you need to. It's a great bar with shuffle board and - no joke - one of the best burgers in NYC. Well, tonight FYS will be hosting a book swap there, starting at 7pm. I'll post pictures asap...
JUNE 4th
Mon, 04/09/2007 - 21:47 — roberthewitt
First off, I'd like to thank the hundreds of readers who've checked out FeedYourShelf.com. Since our soft launch on March 12th, we've gotten loads of great feedback and captured priceless user info.
I'd like to announce that we've officially set our hard launch (or grand opening) for June 4th. Our team is working as we speak to resolve the issues that you've brought to our attention.
First, we realize that depending on the users' browser/operating system that the display is often out-of-whack (components floating and not lining up nicely). Display issues are our #1 concern.
Second, we're making real headway improving search results for adding a book (you can now search by author's full name) and developing a program that will combine all editions of the same work. So that when you shelve say...Lord of the Flies, the combined ratings of every edition of the book will be displayed, not just those for that particular edition. This is trickier than it sounds, but we're getting close.
Third, we're looking to wrap up some of the bells-and-whistles functionality that will make the site really engaging. The ability to build a buddy list is on the way and a fully-functional compatibility score which is 100-times better will be unveiled on June 4th as well as some other surprises.
Thanks again for all your feedback and your patience with our mixed results. I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, feel free to continue building your shelf and enjoy watching the rest of the pieces snap into place.
Book Reviews
Thu, 03/15/2007 - 20:05 — roberthewitt
One of the things I'm going to do is to make an effort to post book reviews regularly in the BOOK TALK FORUM.Eventually this will be open to all users and we will integrate all reviews into the FYS interface (this is going to be a great feature cause for once you'll be able to see your compatibility with review-writers to decide how much weight you should put on their criticism), but for now they'll be listed in the forum. Here's the first one:The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks
Reviewed by Bob:I don't particularly like horror movies and I'm definitely not a fan of slasher flicks; In fact, I'm generally turned off by on-screen gore.And yet...I love zombie films.Just to clarify, when I say I love the idea of the dead rising and pawing at my windows en masse, I mean I fantasize about it, the way that well-adjusted children look forward to Santa Clause dropping down their chimneys...READ MORE
Reviewed by Bob:I don't particularly like horror movies and I'm definitely not a fan of slasher flicks; In fact, I'm generally turned off by on-screen gore.And yet...I love zombie films.Just to clarify, when I say I love the idea of the dead rising and pawing at my windows en masse, I mean I fantasize about it, the way that well-adjusted children look forward to Santa Clause dropping down their chimneys...READ MORE
MASS EMAIL
Wed, 03/14/2007 - 15:35 — roberthewittI'm sending out an email today with this main image to everyone in my address book. Let me know if you're reading this and you haven't gotten the email by dinner-time. I don't want to leave anyone out.
One of the biggest thing that you can do to help make this thing grow, is to tag a little message on emails like this and forward them to everyone in your contact list. To try to encourage this, we're giving every user who forwards a FYS email to every contact in their address book a life-supply of happiness.
I CAN'T FIND MY BOOK!
Tue, 03/13/2007 - 15:06 — roberthewittOK...I've gotten some feedback about troubles adding books.
We're aware of the problem and we're working very hard to fix it asap.
For now, here's the deal:
When you try to shelve a book and get bum results, go to Amazon.com and double-check the title name. If you enter the title exactly as you see it at Amazon, you'll get your book nearly every time. Be sure to include and subtitle too; in the case below if you just enter Secrets of the Kingdom you might not find your book, but if you enter Secrets of the Kingdom: The Inside Story of the Saudi-U.S. Connection you will.
We are working to make this process more flexible, but for now it often needs the exact title. All apologies. Thank you for your feedback and patience.
Problems with Internet Explorer?
Mon, 03/12/2007 - 13:35 — roberthewitt
Heads up!
FeedYourShelf works best on either PC or Mac using the browser Firefox. While we are working to fix some bug that occur with Internet Explorer we encourage users to make the switch. It's just way better. To download Firefox for free simply click the Firefox icon to your right. Trust me: it's well worth the 2 minutes that it takes to switch over.
(If you're on a Mac, the site looks best in Safari.)
And then there were book marks...
Tue, 03/06/2007 - 22:01 — roberthewitt
The development stage is winding down and the promotional stage is gearing up. If you're one of those crazy people that wants to join the cause and start growing this haven for readers, contact us and we'll send you an FYS media-kit with 2-sided, full color bookmarks to distribute to your friends. Here's a sneak peek...
DIRECTOR of BIZ DEV
Wed, 02/28/2007 - 19:36 — roberthewitt
The first thing that I want to mention is that our friend, Mr. Kutuchief has signed on as our new Director of Business Development. Starting in March he'll be leading our gorilla marketing blitzkrieg. Along with the standard promo we're looking to do some real unconventional stuff.
I'll share one of the ideas we kicked around. Imagine seeing a group of protesters chanting on a street corner with picket signs that read FEED YOUR SHELF What are they protesting? you ask yourself....well according to their literature their cause is to bring attention to all the neglected book shelves the world over. Are you neglecting your book shelf? Maybe it's just the senior-prank-coordinator in me, but I love this idea.
