Pop Candy compared this site to Pandora. With BookLamp, you select a book and it pulls up similar books that you may like. It scores matches based on several categories such as pacing, density, action and dialogue.
The site is still in beta and so far there aren’t that many books to search. It seems the majority of selections are science fiction. I did get a kick out the fact they had Police Your Planet. (I went through a phase were I bought off beat books from garage sales/ thrift shops. I bought The Plants – about killer plants – and Police Your Planet).
Ahem, moving on… a little from the site:
Since BookLamp is still only a technology demonstration, being a member is more a show of interest and support than anything else. That in turn pushes us to take this system and do something more with it.
The self learning aspects described in the video are functional, as are user channels and the ability to favorite multiple books in order to create a customized formula. They are not, however, implemented in the graphic interface where you can get to them - they wouldn't be much use without more books in the database.
Without more books, BookLamp isn't very useful yet - even if you've read a number of the books and can use one as the basis of a search, we've turned the sensitivity down. This means that even high matching books will only be partial matches. And as importantly, there are not enough books in the database to allow you to find a story that both matches your preferred writing style and that you find interesting.
I wish them luck. This sounds like it could be cool. I know Amazon can make book recommendations, but I find their suggestions a little hit or miss.
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