BookWyrm: Federated social reading

I’ve mentioned Mastodon before now, but the great thing about federated social media is that it is not dominated by a single server, or even a single type of software. Multiple applications and networks exist to support a wide variety of social activities. And, because they all use the same protocol, they can all talk to each other.

It’s because of this that I came to discover BookWyrm, a non-commercial alternative to Goodreads on which you can track your reading habits, talk about books and find suggestions as to what to read next.

Of the available servers, I have settled in The Library of the Uncommons, the membership of which leans towards Science Fiction and Fantasy novels in terms of reading preferences. This, of course, is great for me and I have already discovered a couple more books to add to my ever-expanding pile of must-read books.

Because all of these federated services can talk to each other, I can interact with people on other servers regardless of whether they are using BookWyrm, Mastodon or anything else.

BookWyrm is still under development but all of the essentials are in place and working well. I especially like how easy it is to migrate from Goodreads to BookWyrm by exporting your books from one and importing them into the other. The import wasn’t perfect, but the site does tell me exactly which books I need to check, so getting everything set up is a remarkably painless process.

I find I am getting a lot more out of BookWyrm than I was from Goodreads. I haven’t deleted my Goodreads account yet, but I suspect that this is only a matter of time.

You can find me at The Library of the Uncommons. Feel free to pop over and say hi.