New Mobile Ebook Reader Site

[taggedzi]

I am a web developer, and I have created a new FREE website for mobile devices to read ebooks.

This site is tailored to smaller devices with more restrictive memory and hardware requirements but works nicely on top end devices too. I built it specifically for the Nintendo DSi, but I have tested it on various cell phones, and the Nintendo Wii, and I have had friends test it on Sony PSP, XBox 360, Kindle, iPhone, and iPad. And so far it has worked great.

This site does not offer "downloads" of books, it offers books in page size chunks that are great for on the go devices. It offers book marking and book shelf capacity (for people who register... registration is free...)

All of the books on this site are Public Domain, and at present there are over 500 books on the site. (I add books as I have time..) This site is a personal hobby not huge corporate presentation... So it isn't perfect, but as a web developer I hope to eventually get there.

So I wanted to announce the site is open to the public, it works on almost any web capable device with a connection and a browser. Please check it out, feed back is nice (sometimes ) If you like please share with a friend... if you don't... please don't spoil it for me.

Ok here is the link: http://ebook.taggedzi.com/

[hedy]

Thank you have placed your site on favorites . Will check over the week end.

Margit

[GA Russell]

Welcome taggedzi, and good luck!

[taggedzi]

After looking at the site for the first time with an android phone (I borrowed from someone...) I decided to make some changes to help it better work with some of the "nicer" (higher resolution) devices. So I have just done a series of updates to help make it "more" mobile friendly and improve the appearance. (Yes it still works in the DSi and an old Samsung web phone, that is what I have so it should aways work with those As I get time I will continually try to improve the site (for as many devices as I can get my hands on...) and add books.

Thanks for the responses so far.

Enjoy.

[taggedzi]

Hey there, I must apologize for the length of the post, but I have a lot to announce.

This announcement is for the site http://ebook.taggedzi.com/

I have improved the graphics (while still providing support for older less capable devices), restructured the navigation, and added a TON of features:

For the general public:

You can now see the average rating of a book (given by other users).

You can now sort books by genre, although I am in the process of adding the books to the genres. (I have only put about 100 books in genres so far, but it is getting done.)

I have also added FULL TEXT SEARCH, You can now search EVERY book on the site for words or phrases. And it will find the book(s) that are rated the most relevant.

I have added IN TEXT SEARCH, you can now go to a book and search for the next occurrence of a word or phrase and it will locate and go to that page, and highlight the text you are searching for so you can locate it quickly.


For registered users:
(accounts are free and no identifiable information is required, all personally identifiable information is optional)

I have added the ability to have multiple book marks, so you can now have 1 book mark in each book on your book shelf so if you are like me and switch books often you can keep up with all of your reading.

I have added the ability to add "notes" to the books, what some people call "annotation". You can place notes up to 250 characters worth of notes per page, so you can note things in the text as you read it, and come back to it later. Only you can see your notes when you are logged in. (This feature is fully functional, but I may expand in the future for additional functionality.)

I have added a rating system. (5 star type rating) People who have an account can vote on the rating of a book for others to see.

I have added the ability to recover a lost user name and password, (only if an email is added to an account.) Because I don't require personal information, if I have no email address I have no place to send a user name/password. But if you elect to include the address, if you forget your information there is a way to recover it.

Sync - Sharing - Devices

All of the information is kept server side so that you can share your bookmarks, notes and ratings to all of your devices. So you can login with almost any device and access all of your information like book marks, notes, and ratings.


New Books

Going forward... the biggest complaint I have had has been lack of "newer" books so, I am actively trying to fix this. I have found some contracts and am trying to figure out the best way to go forward without getting my pants sued off. As this is not a money making endeavor I have no money to offer authors or publishers. So many may chose not to participate, but for authors who are wanting to just get their book out there, may find this suites their needs. I am hoping within the next two months to have a process in place to start adding "new" books. (cross fingers)

Selection

The site now has over 900 texts, and is slowly growing. (I try to ad a few books every week..)

Send off...

I'm trying to make a great ebook site/service and trying to keep it "free" for the consumer without a lot of ads. (without any ads if possible...) The project is slowly growing, so please be patient, but I'm adding features and books as I have time.

Please read, enjoy and spread the word.

[kennyc]

I don't know man. FBReader, Kindle, Nook and Aldiko apps all work great on my DroidX...

No need to access "Special" books.

Good Luck though!

[ApK]

Originally Posted by kennyc

I don't know man. FBReader, Kindle, Nook and Aldiko apps all work great on my DroidX...

No need to access "Special" books.

Good Luck though!

I don't know. Clearly it's not the killer app that ebooks have been waiting for, but I LOVE to find stuff like this that keeps old gadgets and devices viable.
The more things you can do with last year's tech, the more value there is in keeping the things out of landfills and perhaps the more value some low-income folks can get out of donations, etc.

I'll take a look....

[taggedzi]

Well, that is awesome for you kennyc! Thank you for the wishes of luck, and pronouncing the complete awesomeness of your android X. If I had one I am sure those apps would work wonderfully for me too... and I would be very proud to announce it to the world.

But alas my android X has not yet figured out how to buy it self and send it self to me, so I don't think my android X is smart enough for me yet, it needs to earn its keep you know... (I'm patiently waiting for the app that helps me here... does iphone have an app for that??? hmm. )

All sarcasm aside, the purpose of the site was to offer an alternative to people, one that happens to be compatible with your totally awesome android X, but is targeted for the many people who like me have not managed to produce an android X in their personal inventory yet. It is simply an option one with features that I hope users may find useful.

The purpose was to allow anyone with an Internet connection the ability to read books with what ever they had and share that information with as many devices as they had, including the totally awesome Android X, or colossal iPhone, or your "spiffy" gadget of choice. My spiffy gadget of choice is just a simple hand held gaming console... and it works on that too.

[kennyc]

Dude. Drop the sarcasm, I'm just being honest with you. I guess that's not what you want though.

It clearly requires a web browser to get at and most web browsers are pretty good at displaying text and if these are public domain books, there is likely to be a text version out there. If they are not public domain, then we have a copyright/piracy problem.

Sure, maybe I'm missing something, but then again, maybe I'm not.

[taggedzi]

Actually kennyc, I was serious about being happy that you had you "droidx" (I would love one) and was genuinely serious about thanking you for the best wishes. (It was and still is appreciated.) I did go a bit over the top with the rest... but fortunately it was done in good humor.

However, there are a lot of people who don't have spiffy gadgets like that (including me)... And we already know what the technology can do, but simply cannot afford or do not want to afford it. Yes, I know there are a ton of apps out there that can read books, but none of the ones I found worked with what I had... so that is why I created the site. I have tried to make it useful for as many people and gadgets as possible.

Your honesty doesn't upset me... but explaining how a list of apps obsolete the usefulness of my work does, because at the moment I (and many others) do not have access to the technology or the apps you mentioned. I would compare this to a man building a bicycles for homeless people and giving them away so that they could get around where they needed to go... and then a guy pulls up in a brand new BMW explaining how useless bikes are because his car gets him where he wants to go and fast, and how the GPS guides him so he never gets lost, and it has an integrated cellphone, and cameras front and back, etc... I'm sure you can see that as irksome to they guy building the bikes and the people who have to use them?

I'm not saying your phone isn't cool... I'd love one. (I'd love a BMW too) I'm not saying there are not other ebook apps out there that are better. I am saying this was created as an alternative, one capable of working with what people happen to have. (be that the proverbial bike or BMW)

I did not (and still do not) understand your comment about "special" books. I would gladly listen to what you meant in hopes of building a better site, even at the cost of ego. If there is something that would be cool to add, or there is something that is wrong and needs to be fixed I would love to listen.

To address your concerns:

At the moment they are all public domain texts, you are correct. I am looking for LEGAL ways to include NEW texts without violating copyright. I am investigating a way for authors to directly publish on site and allow others to read the texts royalty free while maintaining the copyright.

I also offer a lot of features you cannot get from other sites (at least that I know of). things like a cross device book shelf, multi book bookmarks, and the ability to annotate the texts... While it is not a lot, I found the features useful which is why they are there.

[Sacredwoman]

Very nice Tagg. I appreciate your sites features and all your hard work.

[kennyc]

My only point was that if you have a browser already then most public domain books are already available to you.

If you are offering other features such as individual bookmarking, reading lists, etc on an individual basis then yeah, it might be useful.

Still a plain vanilla ebook reader (particularly on the used market) is no more expensive than most cell phones. With a Kindle (new or used) you get built in 3G etc.

I guess I just question both the need for this and the market for it. Have you had a significant interest? How long have you been up and running? How many users do you have?

[Sigyn]

oooOOOOoooo annotating! <heads on over>

now talk to me slowly, because I am not tech savy, but it sounds like I would annotate in a book i had on "my" shelf at your site, and it would stay with "my" book but at your site?

[carpetmojo]

Sorry, but just tried it, didn't like it, too clunky, not much content - and, with Kennyc, can't really see the point.......

[taggedzi]

Good stuff.

@carpetmojo: What would make it less "clunky" or more user friendly for you? I have tried a few things and due to the amount of data being displayed I haven't found a better way of doing it yet.

@Sigyn: The way the annotation works at present is, if you are signed in, you can add "notes" at the bottom of any page. The note stays on the site, and is directly associated with your user account. So if you log in from anywhere, any device you use can access your notes. In the future I am hoping to upgrade the functionality some as well, I would like to be able to collect your notes and search through them, (some sort of way to collect all your note onto a page and maybe print them out? still forming the ideas on this...) but for now, it is a simple way to put a note on a page so you can remember some thing and come back to it. Suggestions are welcome if you have any ideas. Please remember this is a hobby and may take some time to do, but any good ideas I'd love to hear.

@kennyc: I agree with you, there is not a huge market for this type of site as it stands, as there are many other things capable of doing the job. I have no delusions of sweeping the ebook reader genre by storm or even getting a ton of users. (I realize I'm offering proverbial homemade bikes in a market where people want BMW's...) However, there is a market for people who want to read using things that are not typical ebook readers, I am one, and I know quite a few others.

I'm not trying to create a land slide of users, in fact I don't know if i could handle tens of thousands of users... at present I have about 200 users that come through regularly, and have about 100 registered users, based on the stats I have seen coming through.

There are sites like gutenburg that offer the vanilla texts, if you have tried to use it on a less capable device it is a nightmare. Some of the larger texts just crash smaller devices. (I know anything over about 500 pages crashes my DSi because it does not have the memory.) In short, I am hoping to offer some features that are not available anyplace else (yet). The browser based sites I have found, do not offer cross device abilities, and have very limited options... you can turn pages and have a single book mark on a single device as long as it supports cookies... (my dsi does not..)

I am offering a site that is compatible with a wider range of devices, than your standard app (I hope...). I can't get a kindle app on my DSi, or my cellphone (yes it is very old...) at least not yet.

As I'm not trying to get rich off of this (it would be nice to make a living...), the end goal is to allow people to read books for free, hopefully soon this will include new works that are not public domain... but as this is a hobby and I don't have a lawyer willing to volunteer time to help me overcome some of the legal options of allowing users or even authors to include new works. I have to make sure that the project does not get shut down over people uploading content that is in violation of copyright. (I am trying to figure out that process in between my job and family with limited resources.)

@anyone: I am a web programmer, and this project started as a desire to read children's books to my daughter. I realized there had to be other people like me, and started this as a full scale website... It has slowly grown and evolved, usually on nights and weekends. As I find things features and texts that I find interesting I add them. Please have no illusion this is not a large corporate production meant to bring in the masses... this is a simple site I hope to grow it into something useful and amazing, but it will take years (unless I manage to get independently wealthy and spontaneously get tons of time.) So if you find the site useful I am very happy, and if you don't that is ok too, I'm not looking to be everything to everyone... If you think of something that would be cool, a feature or a way to make things more usable please let me know... it may take me a while but if it is a good idea I'll try to incorporate it. (Realize as there is no money in this I cannot compensate for contributions... so make sure you are comfortable with that before you do..)

Thanks for the responses so far, I do appreciate them and if this site isn't for you it is ok. Any productive ideas on making it better or more useful are welcome.