The librarian must have thought that I have no friends and no life. What I was asking for not something the borrowers usually ask for. I had loaned out this one book on some esoteric topic. While it was still on loan to me, I received an email from the library informing me that someone else has reserved the book. I was thrilled - wow, there is someone else who is interested in the same topic as me.
Couple days later, I was back at the library returning the book. The librarian was printing the reservation ticket for the person who has booked the book. I tried to strain my eyes trying to catch the name. I knew there was no way the librarian was going to give me the name of the person so I asked her if I can leave a note in the book pointing the next reader to my blog post in the book and inviting him/her to contact me if they were interested in discussing the book. That horrified the librarian and she quoted some privacy rules and brushed me off.
This was one of the situations that prompted us to build iwinkd. We were figuring out what would be a totally non-intrusive way to get strangers to talk about an object that they both encounter and care about.
So I am reading this book Fatherland by Robert Harris.
and I want to connect with future readers. One of the initial ideas we had was to leave my email and blog address. I figured that might not work. I needed a neutral space where people can come in. Lets see how this works on iwinkd:
So I head on to iwinkd.com and create a message for the future readers.
Iwinkd comes back with the tag for your message.
Place this tag somewhere in the book.
Someone else encounters to book couple of weeks later and find the tag. The new reader types in the tag at the iwinkd website.
He reads the message that I left for him.
And decides to leave a comment.
Hopefully, we can keep talking about the book.
