Launching [sic]

I have always enjoyed the feeling of finding the perfect book to recommend to a friend. When you just know that they'll love this specific author - when you have the chance to ignite one of those all-nighter, "must finish this book at all costs" sort of frenzies. This type of recommendation doesn't happen often, but when it does it's pure magic.

Knowing what your friends and family are reading allows for this type of recommendation to happen more often because you're able to get a picture of what they are finding for themselves, allowing you to avoid recommending anything they have already read and to refine your recommendations for them. I've never been a huge fan of goodreads, and while I know there are plenty of other competitors out there, my friends and family aren't yet on one, so these networks have little value for me so far.

I decided to build and launch [sic] (opens in a new tab). The first idea for the app came many years ago, but at the time was just a duplicate of goodreads with a better UI. I was re-inspired this year when I stumbled upon another learning about my own use of social media: I (like many) love to consume but am not a big producer of social media. The highest # of posts I make on any social network in a year goes to strava, and that is because my posts are all automated from my runs, hikes, and climbs.

[sic] set out to accomplish this same feat for reading. By automatically syncing with your eReaders, we believe we can create an environment with the best book content (posts) with the lowest friction to adoption (just log into your existing accounts).

[sic]'s goal is to automate the first half of that conversation (knowing what my friends are reading), so that I can spend more time engaging with them around the content, finding great book suggestions, and learning from each other.

v1 launched today, 11/2/23. A few close friends and I have been using alpha / beta versions of the app for about a year. The app is missing many features and is pretty basic, but it is a tank. It does one thing well: it syncs your audible history and displays it to anyone who follows your account.

Despite the very limited functionality, I decided to launch it on the App Store before shifting my attention fully to a new project. I have been spending almost all of my time on the new project anyways, but I wanted to leave this project in a more "completed" stage, so I chose to launch it.

While I do not currently plan to continue developing [sic] in order to focus on my new project, I am still enjoying using the tool with my close friends and I will continue to modify the tool for our own use as time, energy, and motivation permit.

Onwards! 🚀