Discover and locate books from everyone’s bookshelf.

Bookshops and publishers tend to promote books to the general public. It seems unlikely to find the right book for individuals from the scattered information. So how can we tailor-make a library for individuals?

Introducing Every – a platform for books. Every joins book data and community and uses Big Data to provide relevant recommendations. The community enjoys a personalised experience while inspiring merchants, publishers and authors to adjust their marketing and selling strategies to target specific readers.

Increase Relevance on Exploration

Have you wandered through a bookstore for something to read? By importing books you have read, Every analyses your reading patterns and recommends books, authors and book clubs that might interest you.

It matches metadata such as genres, topics, and authors with your reading history and other readers on the technical aspect. It recommends you similar result with similar readers. So the more books you have read, the more relevant content you get.

Trading and Exchanging Books

Many of us have piles of great books, but usually, we only reread a few of them. With Every, you can trade or lend books online and open your bookshelf to everyone so that second-hand books can be reused rather than going to waste.

Location is also a big issue for trading. Users can choose to trade books with locals only. The trading and exchange features are entirely free for general members. Chain booksellers, second-hand bookstore and other shops with physical shop need to pay for transaction quotas depending on the business scale to operate their online shop on Every.

Building the Community

Improving the accessibility of book information is the key to promoting reading culture. In addition to book facts, having specific promotion and review channels build connections between readers and booksellers.

The book club is the place to gather these people with similar interests. Booksellers and authors can create their channels to gather feedback from the community and even their target audience.

Reading From Another Perspective

People are used to judging a book by its cover or the summary on the back page. Still, many books contain inspiring, encouraging and moving quotes. These quotes even change a person’s perspective. Every allows readers to jot down quotes as they read and share them with others, and these quotes will draw other readers to the book one day.

Readers, bookstores, and publishers sustain a seasoned reading culture but not solely count on one side. Every aims at building an ecosystem for a win-win situation that makes the content and sharing more accessible to everyone. Unquestionably, it needs a united effort to make it happen. Gathering open data, cooperating with various parties, and planning a business model to support the business, is challenging in honest but not unlikely at today’s technology level. I hope platforms like this will show up in our near future.

Demo

Tutor	Keith Tam @ Hong Kong Polytechnic University School of Design
Project	Final year project of the programme, Visual Communication, 2012

I did a UI revamp for this project — Every+. Enjoy!