Author Browse, Reader Browse

[Nathan Lowell]

I'd like to see the ability to browse the person who wrote AND the person who reads. I appreciate that some works, like Red Panda, are "cast works" so the idea of "reader" would have to be generalized to some kind of group identity, but I could see that working very well.

"Show me all the works written by Sigler"

"Show me all the works read by Red Panda"

Right now you can "kinda do that" by putting the author's name in the search bar, but ... in the case of Lowell, it returns the two "Against the Tide" entries because "Lowell, Massachusetts, is in the description.

[Evo Terra]

A very good idea, Nathan. Our search right now pretty much blows, as search engines who aren't powered by Google tend to do. We've got some plans of adding additional fields in the database so that it will be easier to discover much of what you describe. It's coming!

[Drew Beatty]

How about something like "Recommended if you like..." or "Listeners who chose this also listened to..." a la Amazon. Something to make is a little more connected and interactive for the users.

[Nathan Lowell]

That's an interesting idea, Drew. I wonder how that might work given the fluid nature of subscriptions .. I was also trying to think of

a. how to implement something like "X days on the top ten list." I don't know how you count that.

b. a way to have the top ten lists reflect the subscriptions more accurately. the issue -- and i dont know if it's a problem or not -- is that newer titles have priority over older works. example: if there's one slot open at the bottom of the list and two titles have the same number of new subscribers, I think *newer* book gets the slot because it appears to order them in reverse order by title id number. I could be wrong on that because it's difficult to really say ... just judging by the evidence on the screen ... how many new subscribers have signed up in the 24 hr period ending with the "show me the top ten" request.

Personally, and speaking as one of the people with a title in the "bottom half" I'm of two minds. I'm perfectly willing to have the newer titles get the promotional edge there, but there's a greedy, selfish bit of me that keeps hammering on the glass and saying "hey! what about me!?" I really *can't* complain because my titles show up in the "quality" tier pretty consistently ... but i wonder how we might do a better job of promoting the "back list" ...

[Onion Girl]

I agree, there is a need for a more comprehensive search feature.

As far as reader browse, I'm sure Nathan was suggesting something different from what I am thinking but as a reader, I would love a tool where if I read a review written by a subscriber I can click on their name and check out their subscription page with a link to other reviews they've written. Sometimes other reader's reviews are very much in line with my own praises and gripes of a particular book so I'd like to check out what they've enjoyed in the hopes of finding a gem I've missed. Even if hyperlinks to a subscribers profile aren't viable, maybe a subscriber search engine leading to a subscription page would work just as well. It would be ideal if you could get all of the podiobooks subscribers to join the community using the same user name they navigate the main site with but I'd imagine that would be harder than having someone write new code for the site.

You've done a great job getting podcasters and their audience together in a risk free environment but I'd also like to be able to pick the brains of my peers for podcast recommendations.

[Nathan Lowell]

That's a very cool idea.

You're right it's different from what I was thinking but I like this one, too.

[Traeonna]

I think this is a fantastic idea. I'm glad someone suggested it already as it was something I've been meaning to bring up (but only recently decided to join this community). A search by author can be done, but as you mentioned, it brings up undesired results at times. Having a drop down of authors would make things much easier for those who are looking for titles by specific authors.

[Gail]

Good search capabilities would make Podiobooks unique in yet another way. It must be difficult, because no podcast site I've seen has a good search.
How about What's New, or Recent Additions, with a drop down list: the last 5, 7, 14, 31 days?

[ToM Merritt]

So Evo (or who ever) after almost 2 years any chance of this happening? I've been downloading since 2006 and still have problems finding certain things...

How about at least making the author's name auto-linked to their own page which they can list their own works for others to find... That's very simple to do.

[Mike Sharpe]

There is a PodioBooks 2.0 in the works, but I'm not a part of the Programming. Instead of adding Major parts to the Software used now, They're building it from scratch. Most of the Features will in this thread may be supported. I heard there will be a Author Page.

[Evo Terra]

Simpler to type than to do, I'm afraid. :)

As Mike says below, the whole site is being re-architected from the ground up. We'll include things that we don't have today and hopefully make search and discovery a whole lot more usable.

[Onion Girl]

Podiobooks.com is great but I'm thrilled to hear you're making it even better :)

[Gail]

agree(1)