BookLamp and Whichbook: Two Solutions to the Online Book Recommendation Problem

We’ve all had a helpful bookseller recommend a book at some point. They have those freakish encyclopedia brains that remember every book they have on their shelves. The problem, though, is that more and more people are making purchasing decisions online and it is very difficult to replicate the helpful bookseller experience on the web. Two book recommendation engines—BookLamp and Whichbook—are trying to solve this problem.

Online Reviews Sell Books, So Let People Post Them

Customer reviews are becoming an increasingly common element of product sites. Customer reviews have been on Amazon.ca for as long as I can remember and they’re also on the Chapters website. Reader reviews fuel Goodreads. But why haven’t publishers jumped on board, especially those selling directly from their sites? And why aren’t customer reviews being built into a retailer website creation or redesign?