You know you've gotten it. Probably eight dozen times. When I heard the first inklings about Shelfari, a myspace-like site devoted to book lovers, I was intrigued. But when I started being bombarded with email invites to join from my 'friends' I was annoyed!
Shelfari was inviting EVERYONE in enrollees address book to join. I don't know how many people you put in your email address book...but mine is...well...embarassingly large. One of my publishers was so barraged with invitations, she sent out an email begging it to stop - complete with instructions on how to join WITHOUT beseiging your friends. You know, so they'd still be friendly to you.
I hate the way the Shelfari software trolled people's address books...but I do like the site. Armed with the info on how to join without alienating those I like...I signed up. And I loved it. I was even able to make 'friends' with some of my favorite authors! So...don't be afraid of Shelfari...just be aware that when you invite your 'friends' you're inviting your entire address book...editors and agents included! Eek!
11 comments:
I'm new to Shelfari, but keep thinking hmmm this is so much like myspace!!! I don't know whether to cancel it or keep it???
Your whole address book? That's freakin' scary.
So what is the right way to Shelfari without spamming your address book?
Thanks!
I've received tons of emails to join and I kept deleting them because it was annoying me like you said. Maybe I'll have to give it a try but I don't want to send stuff to everyone in my address book.
Thanks for all the feedback.
We in no way designed Shelfari to force people to send invitations to their friends. While we make it convenient, we leave the decision entirely up to our users. There is a clear link to "skip making friends now" on the page where we provide the option of importing your email contacts. Importing email contacts is an optional step.
We ONLY send invitations to the email addresses which are selected when the user clicks on invite friends.
Please send us any suggestions to improve this process. The whole point of Shelfari is to share your books with your friends. For this reason we have made this process easy. At the same time, we really do want our product to be clearly understood.
Happy Reading,
Danny from Shelfari
Oh! I should have said how to join without alienating friends...when it tells you to invite your friends...DON'T. That simple.
Oh...hey...look at that. We got Shelfari attention. Hmmm.
Like I mentioned...just don't add your friends...my publisher got 60 invites in one day, most from people she didn't know. I'm sure the invites would work great if your address book included your girlfriends, but it its work friends? Agents you queried? Editors you're in revisions with? Not so much.
I, too, became bombarded with Shelfari requests and I thought to myself, WTH? I deleted most of them.
Every network site can search your email address now to see if any of your contacts are members of the site. If not, you can invite them. That should be an option. Unfortunately, most people don't take the time to skip that step and next thing you know, you're bombarded by "Join XXXNetwork" request.
I simply don't have time for yet another networking site. Between myspace, my own site, blogs, and promo, it's difficult enough finding time to write. I'll pass on Shelfari until I have some more free time.
I'm still getting adjusted to Myspace! I haven't done much joining or adding. The whole address book thing sounds like a pain!
I just joined this site recently, and I love it :) But did I invite my entire address book? Heck no!
Just to add one more thing...the one thing I do dislike about Shelfari that you can't add ebooks to your shelf (unless it's an ebook that's gone into print). I'm hoping they change that soon!
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