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Each week Adam & Ste focus on a specific feature, idea or prototype in Hardcover and iterate on it together or with guests.
Adam (00:01.026)
Hey, hey, stay, how's it going?
Ste (00:03.728)
Hi Adam, going pretty well. Had lots of stuff happening lately.
Adam (00:08.746)
Yeah, yeah, about that. What's been going on in your world the last couple of weeks?
Ste (00:14.48)
Well, I am happy to announce that as of 12 days ago, I'm a proud father of a 12 day old son. Yeah, thanks. So, oh yeah, right. Thank you. Yeah. First time I celebrate. Well, it feels really good. It's really, really interesting.
Adam (00:26.005)
Hey. Hey, happy Father's Day.
Ste (00:42.36)
And yeah, I'm really glad that I'm here, you know, 12 days in. Uh, my wife is in the other room with my son, Jonah, and, uh, he's pretty well behaved so far, so, uh, I consider myself with the, pretty lucky he's one of those kids that sleeps and, uh, cries when he really wants to eat and he wants to eat a lot, but other than that, he's like really, really good.
Adam (01:12.022)
Aw. Yeah, I always hear about the first couple of weeks or months being some of the hardest time for sleep. Have you been able to like get okay sleep or has that been a struggle?
Ste (01:13.281)
Yeah.
Ste (01:25.66)
Well, I mean I don't want to like jinx it but I think so far it's been pretty good I had a few nights with a full eight hours sleep, which I heard doesn't happen So yeah, that's that that's pretty good. I mean, I'm still a bit tired and I have like Some sleep to catch up on from you know, the whole thing the hospital days and yeah getting everything ready
But other than that, yeah, I think I'm pretty lucky. I mean I'm a heavy sleeper usually and when I don't get enough sleep, you know I Can feel it but yeah so far so good
Adam (02:09.75)
No, well, that's very good news.
Ste (02:10.838)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, it's pretty good. I was prepping for the moment a lot, so maybe that helped because both me and my wife are like hyper organizers, so we had like everything laid out. So it helps, you know, that even at night when you have to do the things, you have to do the changes, you have to do everything, you know, everything is where it's supposed to be and we just like grab stuff.
change the nappies, we take the bottle. Yeah, so it all works pretty well so far. So yeah, I'm pretty glad, pretty chuffed. Yeah, it's an experience. I mean, I still, you know, am waking up to it. So that's pretty good. Yeah, how about you? You got any haircut?
Adam (03:05.87)
Yep, yep. But other than that, my wife's been traveling for a week in Mexico and got back last week. So I was solo here for a little while. And yeah, just starting to enjoy the summer, going on a couple of hikes, that kind of thing. But really.
Ste (03:08.301)
Nice.
Ste (03:27.064)
Okay. So we already started hiking. Did you start the hike seriously or are you like using into it?
Adam (03:35.39)
I'd say like easing into it, doing some basic ones, a couple, um, like five miles is about the most I've done just to, you know, test my ACL since I tore it last year, it's kind of like the first time really trying it on a trail longer than like a quiet walk, but yeah, so far, so far, so good.
Ste (03:44.009)
Okay.
Ste (03:54.156)
Okay, nice. Okay, so it's holding up.
Adam (03:59.41)
Yeah. And, uh, yeah. Um, yeah. When, uh, my wife was traveling, I went to a, uh, a speed friending event, which was kind of neat because, uh, you know, like making friends in your, like thirties, forties always gets a little more tricky, especially when you're working from home and not going into an office.
Ste (04:12.637)
Okay.
Ste (04:21.404)
Well yeah, most doesn't happen, I mean... Yeah. So how'd that go?
Adam (04:25.95)
Yeah. So it was, it was neat. It was like a hundred, 150 people. And, uh, you're all like sitting at tables across from each other and every three minutes, um, one side like moves the seat down and, uh, you really just have like three minutes to chat with someone new. And, uh, yeah, really. And then like at the end of it, there was a, like a mixer to just like chat openly with people.
Ste (04:55.628)
Okay, okay. So how many people did you chat with?
Adam (05:00.138)
I think it was three rounds of 10 people, so 30 people total. So it's like an hour and a half.
Ste (05:05.336)
Whoa, okay. How'd that go, me funny? Okay.
Adam (05:13.614)
met a couple of people that were interesting, tried to keep in touch, but there wasn't as much time to get contact info unless you sought them out afterwards. So I felt like that part probably could have been improved some, but I have a feeling most of them are just like on the, like follow the organizers on Instagram. So people can probably keep in touch there.
Ste (05:34.78)
Okay, that sounds good. That sounds good. Yeah, three minutes is not a lot. And, you know, I'm guessing it's more just to check the vibe if you're like really like, no, in vibing with the other person. But that sounds interesting. I think it's a really like neat thing to happen, especially now that yeah, people are working from home and.
Adam (05:51.146)
Yeah.
Ste (06:04.92)
Usually, you don't make any friends after 30, except if you're in certain contexts. I guess parties or parenting might be a big one. Let's see if that checks out.
Adam (06:22.307)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, that's true. Yeah, I have a feeling you'll make lots of parent friends.
Ste (06:30.252)
Well, yeah, let's see. There are like lots of people who are making kids in London. I can certify that because the hospital was full of them. I thought like everybody in London was having a baby at the same time as we were. So yeah, that was pretty crazy. We witnessed some like really interesting events. People like giving birth on the hallway and those kind of... I mean, it's not as intense as the sound. It was all safe. But yeah, it happened. So...
Quite something to process. That's... It's been fun. Yeah.
Adam (06:59.757)
Wow.
Adam (07:10.974)
Yeah, I feel like another way to make friends in the 30s, 40s age is book clubs. I've joined a couple of local book clubs and most of them have in-person meetings because they're local book clubs. And the downside is when I end up reading the book and then the meeting time ends up conflicting with something else I have, which is always
Ste (07:20.817)
Mmm
Adam (07:38.09)
always the worst. It's like, ah, I wanted to, you know, hang out and meet new people, but, you know, plans got in the way. But that's definitely a good one, another good one.
Ste (07:40.107)
Okay.
Ste (07:48.06)
Okay, so that's been going well. I know you joined some book clubs. What are like some takeaways from those? What works, what doesn't? I was always curious, you know, what are the things that make book clubs work and things that make them like sucky?
Adam (08:09.458)
Yeah. Uh, my, my wife's in one too. And I think like between the two of us, we've talked about like some things that have made them work and haven't. And, uh, one thing that I've liked is like our book club does rank choice voting for deciding what book to read and that, that definitely helps. Like it, it makes it so it's not one person choosing and it's not just a straight vote, but you know, everyone feels like they're
their voice is kind of reflected in what we read, which is helpful. There's like one book club, I haven't joined, but I've been like on the outskirts. It's like, I keep waiting for them to pick a book and a time where I can make it and then I'll join it. And it's like a fantasy only book club. So having those like niches where it's very specific, it's not just like, let's pick any book in the world and-
Ste (08:57.145)
Mmm, okay.
Adam (09:07.05)
So like I'm in a Reddit book club and that one's kind of like alternating between a nonfiction book one month and a fiction book the next month. So it's been, that's been neat for like having some, some idea there, but
Ste (09:18.974)
Okay.
Adam (09:25.418)
Yeah. And then for the actual meetings, having like a person leading the conversation, I think is very important. So it's not just people coming together and just chatting. Otherwise, it kind of it doesn't have that like thread of organization and you don't end up digging as deeply into the books.
Ste (09:42.278)
Mmm.
Ste (09:46.488)
Okay, so a bit of structure, that's always helpful.
Adam (09:51.526)
Yeah. And the Reddit one, they've been sending out like a list of questions that they're going to be talking about at each meeting, so you can like think about it ahead of time, you know, form some opinions and the, like the, the thinker in me, like, cause I, I'm not the best at thinking on my feet. I like to kind of pre, pre think things out. So I think that also helps me kind of like.
put some brain cycles into some of the questions beforehand.
Ste (10:23.092)
Yeah, that sounds good. I mean, I can see how it helps. It would help me as well if I was in that position. So yeah, that sounds, they're kind of like prompts, right? So they ask something about the book and everybody answers the same thing or the same question, I guess.
Adam (10:45.983)
Yeah, yeah, kind of like an open question, like, what did you think this thing meant in the book? Or what do you think? Why do you think this person did this? And then having a discussion about that.
Ste (10:58.3)
Okay, that's interesting. And speaking of Reddit, did you follow the events that happened throughout last week? Because those were something. It was really interesting to see how such a huge community can undergo such massive shifts. And it kind of relates to what we do because we know there are books on Reddit with millions of users that talk about books. I was actually wondering if any of them...
Adam (11:10.382)
Yeah.
Ste (11:27.928)
went dark for the event that they scheduled a few days ago. But yeah, it's like really interesting to see how the community coalesced to try to like, with another direction into how things were going. Yeah.
Adam (11:49.246)
Yeah. Do you have like the, the TLDR for, for like what happened on Reddit?
Ste (11:59.256)
Yeah. So as far as I know, I'll give the context where the people haven't followed it. It's basically Reddit decided to put this huge cost on their API because there was one app called Apollo that was using the Reddit API. I don't really know that because, but they were using the Reddit API. So the business...
Like part of Reddit got mad because they were basically using their product. Uh, and, uh, yeah, making, uh, yeah, uh, use of it with their API. So they put the price on the API and the community rebelled because, uh, they liked the Apollo app and everybody was like against these kinds of measures. Plus.
I know, I hope I'm not mistaken, I read an interview by the CEO, who was really, well, basically an asshole telling people that they have to impose these rules because it's their product and nobody can skim off of it because that's business. The tone was pretty bad, so I'm guessing.
You know, this madness doesn't pay off.
Adam (13:24.013)
Yeah.
Adam (13:27.518)
Yeah. I mean, it's like the idea of making the Reddit API, like having to charge for access to it, I feel like that part is less controversial. Like, you know, if someone's building an entire product on your API and you're hitting them with a lot of usage and then your users aren't being served ads while users that use the main Reddit app are being served ads.
It makes sense to have some kind of charge there, but it seems like just how they went about handling this was like, like falling down a tree and hitting every branch on the way down and yeah, the, the comments by the CEO about it just made things worse because they were not, they were not being nice to the developer community for sure.
Ste (14:20.612)
Yeah, it doesn't pay off to like make the developer community and the community in general, who are like the users of your product, enemies, I guess.
Adam (14:32.938)
Yeah, yeah, I think.
And I can like see the reasoning behind it. Like considering that, let's say, you know, Reddit of its usage, I'm assuming a majority of it is through mobile because, you know, most people use mobile nowadays. So let's say, you know, 66% on mobile. And it seems like Apollo was being used by, I mean, even if it was a third of that, that's like 20% of Reddit's entire.
Ste (14:50.72)
Mm-hmm.
Adam (15:06.906)
user base was effectively using it for free without ads, which, you know, for a, a top 10 website in the, in the world, that's a lot of usage. But yeah, the fact that they said like, okay, um, this goes from being free to now you have to pay us $20 million a year. It's like, yeah.
Ste (15:29.076)
Yeah, that number. I think that number might've been the problem. And the fact that they didn't like reach out to the actual people who are using it. I mean, let's say we have an API and someone uses the hardcover API because we have really good book data. And of course we decide to put the charge on it. At that point, it would be.
really bad if we would just like slap a price on there and just make it so adversarial, I guess. So the point of it, I'm guessing, was to actually like block them out so that they do what they've actually done, meaning they have to like take everything down and they have to like cease to exist, which is risky. I mean, there was this risk. So I'm guessing there was some corporate strategy there.
And yeah, obviously would have been better, I guess, to sort of negotiate through the problem than this thing, which like, I'm curious if the community backlash is actually going to last, but I feel like already Reddit was a place where everything was independent, where everything was not controlled by corporate interests. I think after this move, it's clear that.
Adam (16:34.807)
Yeah.
Ste (16:54.524)
They are no longer that place. And it's another like huge platform, huge platform that does this, which also was a ployed opportunity for people like, and platforms like us to like usher in the new generation of platforms that stay independent, I guess.
Adam (17:06.196)
Yeah.
Adam (17:20.358)
Yeah, there was a really good article by a Corey Doctorow kind of about this whole flow called the enxidification of TikTok. And it's, it's kind of this like, it's an article that goes over kind of the life cycle of how social networks rise and fall. And how they rise by, you know, having users that are talking to each other, enabling conversations.
making it fairly easy to create content and have a good like, um, uh, content creator to content consumer ratio. Because if you have, if you're way too far to one end or the other, then you don't have a good, you know, you don't have a good flow of new information on the platform and then how, once you have all those eyeballs, then people, the, these companies start trying to find ways to maximize the revenue from it. And that brings the.
quality of the product down and it brings the creators that are creating things through the APIs or through just new content, that starts to go down. And then it's effectively a death spiral from there where eventually people stop using it altogether or it just, you know, it reaches a new low kind of, if you can imagine what happened to dig in the, like a decade ago, 15 years ago, it's like, you know.
Ste (18:42.36)
Oh yeah. Oh wow. Yeah.
Adam (18:47.082)
they made some changes and all of a sudden they were flying high and then it just went to a new low and it kind of stayed there at that new baseline. Or like MySpace when it like, you know, or Friendster, like all these platforms kind of have done that. But then all these new platforms like Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, they haven't had that same like decline. But I think we're now seeing that on Twitter in the last...
you know, six months as more and more people have left, but it still hasn't reached that point of like an exodus. So it makes it makes me wonder like what like once people are so attached to a platform it takes a lot to get someone off of it.
Ste (19:24.052)
Mm-hmm.
Ste (19:34.08)
Yeah, yeah, that's very true. Uh, I guess it's like that, that habit, it has to be like significantly better, uh, to the, the alternative you'd migrate to, to be able to like do that without like having any costs. I mean, at the end of the day, that's it. I'm still going to use it despite all of this, because it's still like a platform that is useful.
But I'm guessing that slow death will come eventually. Yeah, but you're right. I mean, that wave of early social networks that just rose and then they fell right now, I guess, maybe the corporate.
let's say level of the newer platforms learned a lot from that and they're doing other things. I mean, I really appreciate, for instance, how Facebook reinvents its app once in a while. And also it's smart how they engulf, also scary, but also smart how they engulf new products and new communities and new opportunities, which I guess every major platform does.
Some bets are better, some bets are like not the best, but yeah, they've been doing it pretty, uh, pretty well. They've been doing pretty well lately. Uh, but I guess once you, uh, step over certain, you know, structure, I guess, where there's like this corporate layer that makes the decisions and the product team is.
I'll start with the product. Maybe that's when it happens. I mean, for some, I guess when management comes in, when you're like after a few rounds and you get that layer of management and you're not, I mean, look at Zuckerberg, he's like into the product at all times, if he wasn't, if he was to step back and get other people to handle the product, I think it would be.
Adam (21:31.658)
Yeah.
Ste (21:56.32)
fall in one year, it would be unrecognizable. So you really have to, I should like really like keep the harness or whatever you use like to.
Adam (22:09.699)
Yeah. You can't let, yeah, you have to continue creating value for your users. It's kind of the basic part. It's like, you can't, you can't let creating like money value, like business value, like Trump that at any time. Otherwise you start going down a dark path.
Ste (22:16.694)
Yeah.
Ste (22:30.3)
Yeah, yeah, that's true. And if you think about it, I mean, how they started, I mean, Aaron Schwartz, the whole team that started Reddit, they were like, really, really like rebels. They made it because they believed in some things. And now, you know, you get the CEO saying, you know, just pay us $20 million or you're not the, I mean, that's like, clearly, that's the corporate level, making the decisions. So yeah.
Adam (22:59.191)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Ste (23:02.352)
It's interesting. I saw an interesting show on Amazon Prime. It was called The Consultant. It was with... what's his name? I also played in Inglourious Bastards. I always forget his name. Whatever, it's called The Consultant. Really good about a gaming company that is overtaken by some sort of corporate devil.
Adam (23:29.198)
Huh, interesting. That, that, that was, that was one of the fun things about, uh, Mythic Quest, the show, because it's, it's like, um, if you haven't watched it, it's by one of the co-creators of it's always sunny in Philadelphia. And it's about like a gaming company and, uh, it's, it's just, it's pretty hilarious, but it also talks a lot about just like,
Ste (23:49.516)
Okay.
Adam (23:57.846)
kind of the evil sides of a company trying to just make money with like loot boxes and trying to maximize revenue and kind of the difference between that and just creative freedom and trying to do something that the fans want. But yeah, another good one for that.
Ste (24:13.709)
Oh yeah, I added that to my list. Nice.
Adam (24:18.265)
And speaking of Apple, did you follow the whole Apple vision? The vision pro.
Ste (24:22.004)
Oh god.
Ste (24:27.485)
Yes. And I'm a bit like, let's say not guilty, but I have to say I am excited and I am sold because I've been waiting for that kind of stuff. I know it's creepy and you know, I think only Apple could pull it off at that level. I guess it's not going to be like, but remember the iPod. It was like amazing when that seems like such a far product right now, but it's worth.
back then, so I'm guessing, you know, a few generations and this is going to work. But yeah, it was really exciting. And I was actually thinking what it means for us, because when they showed like those apps and the fact that you can like open a browser window and it's an app in VR, I was thinking how you could do like the stuff you do on hardcover in VR with that thing over your head, which I mean, I know, you know, for it's hard for.
anyone really to imagine themselves with that thing on their head, like doing the stuff they are doing in front of the laptop. I'm guessing it's not that far off. I'm guessing, you know, this interaction, staring into a small rectangle while you're typing stuff will seem really old, really fast once this catches on.
Adam (25:47.051)
Yeah.
Ste (25:49.6)
So yeah, I was excited about it. How about you? Ha ha ha.
Adam (25:54.982)
Yeah, it's one of those things I feel like I've been waiting for a while. It's like, I don't think any of us know what it's going to be, like how it's going to be used. But I think the idea of it is what's most interesting to me. It's like, it's opening up a new form of interaction. Like, you know, from, we had, you know, computers with just a screen and a keyboard to phones where you're touching. And now it's going to be like a whole new interface device.
And one of the neat things that I was reading about is like, whenever there's a new interface design, one of the first things that people do is create like skeuomorphic design for it, basically design that mimics the real world in that new system. Which is why on like the iPhone, you had like felt and like, uh,
yellow legal pads and things like that. So.
Ste (26:55.044)
Remember the shelves in the book app? They were actual shelves, like little shelves.
Adam (26:59.198)
Yeah. So it makes me wonder like, and even in the demo that they showed for the Apple, um, the vision pro, it had, there was like a basketball game you were able to watch. It's like, it's recreating things that you could see in real life in this new environment. And it made me think like, you know, you could have a, a virtual representation of your library with all the books lined up, even though they're not really there. Um, like there's.
I'm just excited about what'll be created with it. Or even combining it with some of the large language models, image creation. You could have something where you're reading a book and it's changing the environment all around you to fit the theme of the book.
Ste (27:34.607)
Mm-hmm.
Ste (27:52.612)
Oh yeah, oh yeah. I think that's even with this tech like quickly feasible. I mean, I played around with generative filling Photoshop and that's basically like it, uh, and, uh, yeah, exactly. I mean, this coming in at a time where we have AI and you can also use a generally like 3d stuff, uh, which will definitely get better. So you can just like.
wish things into existence will be great. I mean, I'm excited for the gaming aspect as well. I can't wait to like have like stuff set up like small islands on my table or like little villages or that kind of stuff. I mean, that's gonna be like really exciting or exactly that kind of stuff. When you read the book and the environment changes or you have like these 3D things or even the characters, maybe you can see the characters.
Adam (28:24.417)
Mm-hmm.
Ste (28:46.252)
You can have generative video. Why not? Uh, it's still like really early. I mean, that's why I mean, I'm always thinking the iPod was like a thing you can put music on, I mean, compared to, and that was what, 10 years ago, but no 15 years ago. I like 20. Oh, Oh God. Okay. Yeah. Still, uh, like you could only put music.
Adam (28:50.161)
Yeah.
Adam (29:05.543)
20 years ago.
Ste (29:13.092)
on it and at that time it was like a major revolution right now if you think like you can put stuff on a stick or so like far like from that point that it's almost what's happening now seems like magic compared to you know that point so yeah it's really exciting yeah it's really nice that you know we can already see what can be done with it
and things that are related to what we're building. Uh, I'm assuming that after, you know, it actually goes out and at this price point is probably going to be like the first batch is going to be for people who either really want it or for people who are going to create, uh, content on it and apps for like the next iterations. I'm assuming, you know, they'll be like cheaper models. There's also the quest.
which again, like it's validated Zuckerberg's idea, like massively people are saying, oh, they killed the quest, that's like, you know, they, I mean, my take is that they actually did him a huge favor because everyone was making fun of the metaverse and now it's actually like a thing. And yeah, I mean, I don't know. I don't know, I mean, books are this like, in terms of medium.
Books are these rectangles that you read. Laptops are these rectangles that you look at. Having like stuff in your world, like having it immersed, that's like what we've been trying to unlock like since forever, right? So.
Adam (30:57.406)
Yeah. It's going to be exciting. I, yeah, I, I am also like, you know, I will be on the wait list to get one when it comes out, even though I have no idea how I'll actually use it.
Ste (31:11.764)
Well, people are saying there's no use case. Before they released, I mean, for Quest, the use case was gaming and I couldn't see anything else. But the fact that they put so much detail into the execution actually opens up a lot of things. I mean, I can see myself working on it. It could work on hardcover. We could like...
codes where I'd have a screen here with the code. I have like the app here. I would have like a chat here where we would like pair to, yeah, for some code. So it could be like really, really nice.
Adam (31:42.914)
That's that's that's.
Adam (31:58.994)
Yeah, I, I'm really curious to see what the programmer experience is when in that VR state, like if, if I can do, like, if I can work faster with it than I can with a computer and a monitor, like that would be, you know, I, that would be a game changer for productivity. So that's one thing I'm definitely curious about. Same for design. I imagine like.
Ste (32:18.976)
Yeah. Oh yeah. Definitely. Yeah. I'm trying to wrap my head around because it's definitely gonna explode from like these rectangles that we're all like a joint and these interfaces that are fixed to something else. And I'm trying to think, you know, what that extra dimension would, would look like. And that's, uh, because it comes as a really like
Adam (32:42.254)
Hmm.
Ste (32:48.764)
interesting time with AI because some of the interfaces might not be like as fixed as we work as we build them now, so you might have interfaces that change You know you have a box that after use you some kind of info right now We are coding that box. We are designing that box, but what if you know, let's say four years down the line
you can actually have the box and the reader can change what's shown in that box and we wouldn't like even need to build it so that it would just whip up the code based on our data, based on our like code base, based on our like everything. So this is like generative interfaces. I really like interesting. And it's, it's going to change a lot for me. It's like, yeah, it's really exciting. Like for everyone, uh, who's like watching.
I guess.
Adam (33:47.498)
Yeah. It's, it was like, I remember when the iPhone first came out and like the app store first launched and people were creating apps for, you know, the most basic things like, you know, here's a, here's a flashlight app because the iPhone didn't even have a flashlight. Yeah. The thing with the beer. And these are apps that made like millions of dollars just because, you know, they were some of the first steps out there and they were
Ste (34:03.936)
Yeah, that thing with the beer. Ha ha ha.
Adam (34:15.026)
exploring this new space of interactive, it was like the first interactive device that you can move around and have it actually do things. So yeah, I just can't wait to see what the first things that people create that are like that are, because that'll be what happens before people create the real useful things. They're...
Ste (34:38.652)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's going to be funny before it's useful, but, um, yeah, I, of course. Yeah. Why not here for that as well.
Adam (34:43.18)
Yeah.
Adam (34:48.17)
Yeah. And yeah. And just the fact that you can like mirror your laptop and like, basically use it as a full interface device. Like you are your laptop from day one. Like that is already worlds past what the iPhone was when it launched. So
Ste (35:04.184)
Oh yeah. Definitely. I mean, I'm waiting for the first time I see people with these things in cafes because for instance, if I'm not, if I'm working from a cafe, that is like what I'm going to do rather than like moving the clunky laptop, putting it on the table. Oh, spilling coffee all over it. I'm just going to put that thing on. It's going to look dumb at first because nobody else will be using it, but.
Adam (35:12.846)
I'm gonna go to bed.
Ste (35:30.592)
Just like wait two years until everybody else is using it and you'll feel like weird when you're the only one who's not. It's like not having the phone right now. If like, I mean, there are some people who don't have phones and it's seen like as a thing that's, you know, not usual, I guess. I'm guessing this would be the same.
Ste (36:00.16)
Yeah, it's happened, but you've made the source probably like a good bet.
Adam (36:05.054)
Yeah. And maybe, maybe by then there will be multiple models. Like there's more of a lightweight model that's more like normal glasses rather than a massive VR headset.
Ste (36:14.836)
Yeah. Well, if that, I think that's the like end goal. And, you know, Google actually like tried to make it like what, 10, seven years before its time, because that's what Google does. Another like really.
Adam (36:34.084)
Those were so neat. Like I was kind of sad that those didn't like iterate to something useful because it was such a cool idea. Like, yeah.
Ste (36:41.787)
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly. I hate Google for these kinds of stunts and they did it like recently with Google domains and do you know that they sold it to Squarespace and there were like lots of angry people in my feed. They always do that. They did that with Stadia. They invested 2 billion freaking dollars into Stadia and yeah, they just shut it down with Stadia. I think so.
Adam (36:52.775)
Mmm.
Adam (37:11.406)
Google actually, like they do a good job of like shutting things off when it's like not part of their core business, like as bad as that is for the users. Like it keeps them focused, like, but it's, it sucks for users.
Ste (37:19.02)
Yeah.
Ste (37:28.036)
Yeah, exactly. I mean, it does. Right. Yeah. Well, this is, this is like really exciting. We're also like at an exciting time with Carpenter as well, aren't we? Lots of stuff in the pipeline.
Adam (37:45.486)
Yeah. Uh, yeah. Um, we're, we're like the, the current upgrade for hardcover is kind of like, I feel like it's ended up being almost like a full rewrite of the front end on how it works. Um, so it's really touching like every page in the app, but I'm not like re designing it to match the mockups yet. I'm more like.
updating the programming style to use this server side generated part. So it'll be a lot faster. Um, but it is, it is coming along and it is, yeah, I'm excited about it, but it still has a lot of work left. It's ended up being one of those. Yeah. It's ended up being one of those things where I thought it was going to be a lot faster than it was to, to do it. And then once I got in there, I'm like, Oh.
Ste (38:32.988)
Yeah, well, that's good. Yeah.
Adam (38:44.576)
This is going to be a big project.
Ste (38:47.744)
Well, sometimes it's like that. Maybe every time, I guess. But yeah, once this is done, it's going to be like really up to, I guess, what's the newest standard in terms of like approach right now. And hopefully it's going to help us ship the new layouts.
faster because we've got some like good, good designs. I've also seen that in the community, there are people who are asking for all kinds of like neat features. There was that suggestion about the match score having different colors. There were some suggestions about the profile page and they're coming, they're coming.
Adam (39:18.219)
Yeah.
Ste (39:43.488)
gonna be new components, new ways we show stuff. It's pretty exciting in design. And I guess we're close to making a version of Hardcover that's finally out of beta. Because yeah, for that big launch, we've got a few things that we're preparing. We've got the book page.
We've got the... What else?
Adam (40:20.382)
The new book button will be one of the big ones.
Ste (40:23.388)
the book button. Yes, a whole new revamp experience of how you're tracking books, so that's gonna be good. The search, the search is almost there. It's on staging, so soon online.
Adam (40:26.226)
and
Adam (40:38.145)
and
Yeah. And the kind of the first version of the new book page, but not like, not the final version, but at least like with the new header.
Ste (40:50.762)
Nice.
Adam (40:52.566)
And that, yeah, I'm.
I'm really liking the, like how we're using the colors from the book cover on the book page. Like that's, that's something, one of those things that I've been wanting to figure out how to do for a while. And it's, it's looking really cool. Like let me share my screen for a sec here.
Ste (41:14.835)
Oh yeah.
Adam (41:18.758)
Screen, window, this one.
Adam (41:27.807)
Yeah, this is a.
Ste (41:29.088)
Here we go!
Adam (41:33.73)
Yeah, it's pretty much like this top part is kind of the part that's been redesigned.
Ste (41:42.908)
Yeah, that part looks great and it will be replicated in other parts of the app as well. I'm working on a new profile page, which will be the author page as well, which will take that part, ah, here we go, that part and actually make it into a place where you could put a nice cover image.
So it won't be the color. It could be a color, it would fall to a color. But I was thinking for support is that we can do the same thing that our box does. So you would be able to customize your profile with a picture or something that's, if you're a reviewer or any type of person who creates book content, you could put something.
a promotional there or something that you like or something that represents you to actually like make that heart of a profile look like it's yours. And there's going to be like a line with what we're doing on the book page is going to be pretty, pretty neat.
Adam (42:54.503)
for this, like as I've been like using this more locally and on staging, one of the things that I kept trying to think about was like, how do we do more like social proof here? Like one of the things that I know we have in the mockup for this page is things like,
Ste (43:11.755)
Mm-hmm.
Adam (43:21.962)
you know, friends who read this. So like we have this, this social proof and this social proof. Um, and then potentially we have like prompts. So we could say like, this is number X in this prompt, kind of like, uh, on IMDB. When you look at a book and it says like, this is number, you know, 45 of the best movies of all time, things like that.
Ste (43:24.342)
Uh huh.
Ste (43:48.709)
Oh yeah, and the reviews.
Adam (43:50.242)
but the reviews, yeah.
Ste (43:54.496)
the reviews are going to be like really interesting because there was also some chat about this on Discord about author ratings and how they're handled. And for books, of course, the star rating is important and they have half stars as well, which is more accurate, but to really like get an idea of how a book...
fields, a review is way more telling. So I'm guessing having those reviews and having written reviews and video reviews as well will help. There are lots of people who are reviewing that book in other places on YouTube or on TikTok. So it would be nice for them to be able to link that review. And further down the line, if you implement the batch system, we could show those reviews from people who have a lot of
like prestige in that particular genre of the book. So if the book's main genre is fantasy, the first review would be from someone who has like a lot of fantasy books read and is a really active reviewer in the community. So that would be like really, really nice to get someone who's...
certified I guess. Yeah, there was also like, yeah, well that happens. There was a question on Twitter from one of our supporters, Jeff, who asked if we have any fail safe in case someone reviews a book.
Adam (45:26.668)
Still working on that.
Ste (45:48.972)
but they haven't actually read the book. So it's a malicious review, I'm assuming. I think our approach right now is that any kind of review can be flagged. So if there's someone leaving lots of reviews that are fake or unintended, we flag them, we can ban them, we can restrict their access if we want, and we rely on the community to do that.
Adam (45:51.758)
Hmm.
Ste (46:16.876)
prestige score might also come in handy because those reviews from someone who isn't, you know, really doesn't have that prestige through badges would push that review down. So it would organically not be shown first. What do you think about that? Yeah.
Adam (46:38.474)
Yeah. Yeah, that's a good question.
Yeah, like we have this similarity, like the sorting of these reviews, like the, one of the sorting is by, like your match percentage with that other person. So if people are just, you know, trolling and they're doing that, and you're sorting by readers with similar interests than you, then those people that are trolling are gonna be at the bottom of the review page. But their scores are still gonna
impact the average rating for the book. Um, so yeah, like you said, reporting is the best way to go about that. But, uh, yeah, I wonder about other ways we can do that. Like one of the, one of the, uh, things we toyed with was like awarding badges for like, if you, if you've read like a hundred, like a hundred fantasy books and you have like the
Ste (47:26.269)
Well, yeah, go ahead.
Adam (47:41.186)
the 100 fantasy book badge, and then you could see the average rating of this book by other people who have also earned that badge, for instance, or things like that. Yeah, I'm wondering about what other ways we can help that out.
Ste (47:58.548)
Yeah, well, it was mentioned on Twitter, the story graph, for instance, asks someone if they actually read that book, so it forces you to declare, I read this book. But my first instinct is that, okay, that might be good, but it can also, I mean, a malicious reviewer who wants to leave a bad review can just do that. So they don't have to read the book. They don't have to read any book.
If we get bots and especially now that you've got AI models that are able to create a real looking activity, if you've got bots that come in and thrash the reviews for muddy with intent to muddy our data, our only chance again, and any platforms chance against those is community action actually like.
having the community report and having verified users. And I think like our approach generally is to have readers who are verified, who go through onboarding, who leave data that's accurate, rather than like maximizing users of whatever quality.
I guess.
Adam (49:28.358)
Yeah.
Ste (49:30.768)
Onboarding is a good filter because maybe onboarding is a step where we could actually filter those potentially malicious users so that we get them before they actually are able to leave a review. At that review level, I don't think there's much you can do except just...
We'll let them read the review and we'll let us try to push it as further down as possible or have that committee report it.
Adam (50:10.902)
Yeah. And it, uh, there's probably some way we can like, just identify accounts that are basically created just to give negative reviews. Like if, if the only books are reading are books that are like one star, then maybe we don't even include your, your books and any of the, the rating charts, the rating sums, the rating averages, like, so we have a way of like.
Ste (50:23.271)
Yeah.
Adam (50:40.506)
indicating that a user is a shadow band from reviews. And so behind the scenes, we would mark that through probably some algorithm on our side. And then for the users, they don't know anything's wrong. They just continue using the site as usual. But yeah, the only way to access their reviews would be to go to their specific review page rather than the listing page.
Ste (50:45.747)
Oh yeah.
Ste (51:10.264)
Yeah, well, that sounds good. I mean, I think those reviews, you know, getting to them will take a lot of work. If most people leave genuine reviews. So if we maximize and make leaving reviews as easy as possible without like introducing any steps, like verifying or review or whatever, we're asking like questions which are. I don't know.
certifying, you can't really certify someone has read the book. And I'm imagining it's really tough to do that. I mean, I wouldn't know how. So it's better to just make reviewing something as easy as possible so that people who actually leave good reviews are incentivized to...
Adam (51:50.277)
Yeah.
Ste (52:02.98)
leave the good reviews and the bad reviews can just be suppressed by us on our end. There are like multiple points, yeah. Now go ahead.
Adam (52:06.167)
Yeah.
Adam (52:10.411)
Wanna-
Adam (52:13.926)
One thing that came to mind while you were saying that for like certified reviews was, uh, once we get like a concept of discussions, one, one thing we could do is have like, you know, kind of like book club questions about the book, and if you answer like, you know, maybe we have like 10 questions. And if you answer like three of them, those end up being part of the discussion about that book. And if you answer those, then your review is like,
Ste (52:29.738)
Mm-hmm.
Adam (52:42.472)
certified or something.
Ste (52:44.488)
Yeah, definitely. That's a good one. That doesn't impact the way you'd leave a simple review. Let's say you just read the book, you want to just leave a review, leave a star rating. You should do that, no questions asked. But if you have these questions that are tied to a book club where someone asks, okay, let's see, whatever your take is on this question.
Yeah, that could definitely push the review up. So it could be like the first like level of review where you have, yeah, that's a really good idea. Have the first level of review, which was a simple star rating, then the next level, which is a written review and then the next level, which is like the questions. And then maybe another level, which is video, because if you're living a video review, that's probably like your content creator, your review matters, like.
Adam (53:41.943)
Thank you.
Ste (53:44.312)
a lot and yeah so if you got all those
Adam (53:46.698)
Yeah. Or you're linking to a, yeah, link into a blog post. Yeah. It's and like our algorithm to discern who's spamming reviews would be taking all these levels into account. So the more of them you go through, the less likely it is that you have a ambulance behind you more likely.
Ste (53:51.71)
Yeah.
Ste (54:07.532)
Oh yeah, sorry. Crazy street. This is one, I've learned that this is one of the pilgrimage routes. So it's a street that's like more than a thousand years old. It's called Orc and Throat. So yeah, it's a pretty, yeah.
Adam (54:19.423)
Interesting.
Ste (54:23.82)
Ah, here we go. Look at these, yeah, these are looking great.
Adam (54:24.77)
And yeah, this is a.
Adam (54:29.718)
And yeah, and I'm still working on kind of what happens when this is shown. There's like a, but.
Adam (54:42.226)
having that like pop up, like the first time you, the first time you interact with any button, it does that loading. Cause it's like loading all of the, the JavaScript required to make it run. So all that JavaScript never loads until you interact with the button.
Ste (54:50.834)
Mm-hmm.
Adam (54:59.69)
And then, yeah. And I think I was still in the middle of like a major refactor for how this works. So all of it's in a not working state, I don't think, but hey, that actually did work. Yeah. And then.
Ste (54:59.982)
Nice.
Ste (55:13.664)
Nah, see? Sometimes it does.
Adam (55:22.538)
Yeah, like I just added a super basic create list. Some of these, I haven't been like going back and forth with the prototypes. I've been kind of like, I know this isn't like the same style as the prototype, but it'll get there.
Ste (55:36.404)
Yeah, that's, we'll have time to fix those. I mean, the functionality is like primary. It's great, especially for the app.
Adam (55:41.046)
Yeah.
Adam (55:52.566)
Yeah, very easy.
Ste (55:53.065)
Yeah, this is looking good.
Adam (55:57.573)
And yeah.
Ste (55:58.564)
And just one thought for, since you mentioned discussions and having that, those levels of priority, I guess, because if a review has all those layers, we push it so it has a certain priority. I was thinking about something like that for a feed algorithm, because once we have discussions, we'd also need to decide.
what we show first. And I'm guessing those levels of priority could be something we think about and we can maybe make the same levels work. So a discussion post, like a review, if it has certain features to it, maybe it can be assigned a certain priority. Just as like
a review if it has all those extra things. It would have, let's say priority one is a review that has a video and it's from someone who has like, I don't know, 100 reviews plus, and that's how we know it's a really good review. The lowest priority five or whatever is a review that's from like a new reader who isn't verified and it's like the
most suspicious review that we don't show. So we don't show with a priority. So we show this we show items based on this priority and make that rule universal so that it assigns priority to reviews based on certain things and to discussion items based on other things, but it's the same algorithm that assigns priority.
or like a tweaked one. Yeah, just trying to think of how that would work so that we don't just like show things over there, just like push things in the feed, but they actually have, it's probably gonna work way different, of course. But the idea is to have that ranking, yeah.
Adam (58:12.659)
Yeah, it'll-
Adam (58:17.766)
Yeah. How we, how we incorporate discussions into the feed. Well, that's definitely going to be a tricky problem. I, uh, I haven't even put much thought into it yet because it's going to be a hard problem. And.
Ste (58:26.017)
Mm-hmm.
Ste (58:30.42)
It's gonna be a hard problem, but it's okay. I mean, we'll figure it out.
Adam (58:35.966)
Yeah. And I think at that point, it'll make sense to have filters on the feed for like, um, what type of activity you want to see. So like, maybe you, maybe you, maybe you only want to see activity by your friends. Maybe you only want to see activity by your authors. Maybe you only want to see discussions on your books. And it, and it becomes like the gateway to
Ste (58:47.645)
Yeah.
Ste (58:58.263)
Mmm, nice, yeah.
Adam (59:03.41)
all the data that's new for you on hardcover, and you decide which ones you wanna see.
Ste (59:10.74)
Yeah, that's really good. It's going to be, that's a good approach. I just put it out there so that, you know, we get our clocks going because, I'm guessing after we get things we're working on right now off our plates, that's going to be the next big thing. So yeah, a bit anticipating that because that's also exciting. And with the stuff going on, I think it's a good moment to actually like deliver ship.
this kind of network that's not relative to places that are, you know, getting
Adam (59:49.886)
Yeah, yeah, we need to be a viable alternative for book communities, in other words, yeah. Yeah. Cool.
Ste (59:56.156)
Yes, yeah, definitely. Great, well, this was good. I think I have to go back to feeding time, both for my cats and my 12-year-old kid. So yeah, it's been really, really good, really productive. Yeah, my cat is scratching the garbage can. She does that to let me know I have to feed her.
Adam (01:00:09.813)
Hehehehe
Adam (01:00:15.276)
Yeah.
Adam (01:00:18.929)
I'm sorry.
Well, don't work too hard on hardcover. Priorities are for sure different right now.
Ste (01:00:29.58)
Oh yeah, don't worry about it. It's, uh, as long as it's relaxing and, you know, I enjoy it. That's, that's how I do it.
Adam (01:00:37.058)
Cool. It can, yeah, as long as you feel like it's a break and not an additional stress on your life, then yeah.
Ste (01:00:44.78)
Oh yeah, definitely, definitely. It feels like a break. It kind of feels like a break. Great. Awesome. Well, nice chatting to you, Adam. And yeah, until next week.
Adam (01:00:51.558)
Cool.
Adam (01:00:57.774)
Cool, talk to you later. Bye, state.
Ste (01:00:59.688)
Right. Have a good one. Bye bye.
Ste (503:57:43.975)
Oh yeah, I saw that. Well, that's the old search.
Ste (503:58:03.211)
Okay, just saw this. So I have to re-sync the database.
Ste (503:58:12.702)
Oh, okay, cool.
Finally getting closer. Yeah, it's been really bugging me because I have to like do the login stuff the logged in like the welcome and everything
Ste (503:58:33.059)
Yeah, okay.
Ste (503:58:49.147)
Okay. That should be good.
Ste (503:59:12.716)
Yeah, let's go.
Ste (503:59:29.915)
I am, it's going well another busy week over here in London. A hot day, summer is here, most of it.
Ste (503:59:46.179)
Oh god, you wouldn't wanna know. There's been this thing where Americans were making fun of UK people because they were saying you basically are dying inside when it's 30 Celsius which is about, let me see, how much Fahrenheit.
Ste (504:00:08.148)
would that be?
Okay, yeah, and Americans are making fun because, you know, that's like, if you live in Florida or in a hot state, that's like laughable. But over here, only 5% of houses actually have AC, so that makes a big difference. So whenever it gets close to 30 degrees to 87 Fahrenheit, over here, it basically boil inside. And yeah, it's been...
I mean, it's manageable, but you know, you have to, even with the windows open and everything, I put down the blinds so the sun wouldn't come in. Yeah, it's getting hot.
Ste (504:00:56.719)
Well, the fan situation is good. A couple of years ago in the pandemic there was a fan shortage, but yeah, I got a fan. Actually, I didn't put it up this year, which I don't know why, but yeah, that was the case. It kind of gets okay after a couple of days, and I don't mind. I mean, tropical London is not something I had on my bingo card, but I am not minding it at all. I'm making the most of it, so... It is very summer-ish, very...
vibe-y from that point of view, which I mean it wasn't like that 10 years ago.
Yeah, lots of open terraces, lots of courtyards open. So yeah, it's basically like Mediterranean style a bit in the days when, you know, it's hot. Yeah, how about it? Yeah.
Ste (504:01:54.191)
Hmm, yeah, it's kind of a spring thing. And you get many days where it rains in the morning and in the evening, it's very sunny and very hot. Yeah, it's kind of like Paris and it's not that much rain. People are expecting, you know, to be a lot of rain because that's the image. But now I'm actually waiting for some rain. I'm looking forward to some.
Ste (504:02:31.055)
Wow, okay.
Ste (504:02:37.991)
Nice.
Ste (504:02:44.175)
Ha ha.
Ste (504:02:51.323)
Okay.
Ste (504:02:59.755)
Oh God, yeah, that must be intense. I mean, someone was telling me that in Singapore, it's like between 26 and 30, which is like, I guess, 87 to 70 something. And it's like that throughout the year, but the humidity is so high that you perceive, so the humidity is like 60, 70 all the time.
So it's not that much. First I said, okay, but that's dream water, like 26, like all year long, especially in winter, that's like ideal. But yeah, with that humidity, I doubt it. We had 65 humidity over here yesterday and you could barely breathe. So yeah, not sure I want that.
Ste (504:04:07.819)
Well yeah, I bet. That's like borderline dangerous, isn't it? I mean... Yeah.
Ste (504:04:20.059)
Okay, yeah, sounds intense. I mean, Salt Lake sounds pretty, I mean, huge lows in winter, very hot in summer. I don't mind, that's what it was back home in Romania, so very, very like different.
Ste (504:04:36.159)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. The sweet spot.
Ste (504:04:46.123)
Well, basically, kid duty, which is taking up most of my time. Not that I complain. It's been really, really good. And yeah, I'm enjoying the most of it. It's great. I mean, very different to any other experience I had before in the good way.
Ste (504:05:12.847)
Well, I wouldn't say so. I think I did a lot of mental prep before. So, yeah, both me and Anna, my wife, were pretty prepared for this. And the baby is very well behaved. He's like sleeping now near me. So, you might hear a bit of crying later on, but yeah, he has a lot of sleepy periods.
My mom told me I was a really fussy baby that I screamed like 24 hours a day and I was hoping oh god please don't let him be a fussy baby but no he's great. So yeah we did something right? Yeah. How about you? What have you been up to?
Ste (504:06:09.372)
Okay, nice.
Ste (504:06:16.683)
OK, do you have a creek or something where you could do like...
Ste (504:06:39.243)
Yeah, and I think I'm perfect with real beauty. Yeah, I was.
Ste (504:07:02.899)
Okay, that's intense. That's with spring, month, and water. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. That's nice. Yeah, that's really cool. Were there any fireworks or self-made fireworks?
Ste (504:07:21.755)
Okay.
Ste (504:07:58.491)
Wow, that's nice. Yeah, I didn't know about that. I'll check it out. Yeah, drones sound great. I've seen that it's all the rage to replace fireworks with drones, which I mean is a welcome move, especially if you're a dog, I guess. Drones are way better.
Ste (504:08:21.535)
Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, that as well. Big problem lately.
Yeah, that sounds great.
Ste (504:09:02.871)
Yeah, it's big. I mean, I've heard from other devs, some are quite angry that they have to do the whole refactoring. So I guess they took it out on the Next.js and React team. But I'm guessing it's a welcome move in terms of how everything is structured. And we will be having the most modern tech stack.
I guess from all the book apps at the end of this. So I guess that's worth it. And another big update that we've been talking about open sourcing the front end, which will be one of the huge things we will do towards like opening cover up to contributions from outside, which wasn't the case up until now. So.
Ste (504:10:21.968)
Yes.
Ste (504:10:38.007)
Yeah, definitely. And with open sourcing, there's always, it's tricky. I mean, I'm watching a few open source companies that did it really, really well. Most of them, I think they have, they might have the data sites not open source, actually. So this approach where everybody
can contribute to fixing bugs and adding improvements on the front end side, I think is the bulk of how open source happens in many, many projects, which is great. Yeah. And especially on this niche where you have kind of fierce competition like Amazon and all the other book apps. It's good to...
assess it, I guess, and yeah, make sure we aren't like making any moves that can be damaging towards, you know, the mission to actually replace other products that, yeah.
Ste (504:13:23.979)
Yeah, then again, you know, it's also our work for the past two years, which in open source is really important. You know, I've also, I've always been wondering, you know, how open source works with permanent teams and teams of contributors. I know some of the open source companies do bounties. Some of the open source companies, you know, they just get contributions like we did. We have a few people who...
asked quite a few actually, who asked if they can contribute. And I think as far as I know, we'd be the only app who are thinking about open sourcing part of the place where you can actually do something with the book data and open sourcing what you can actually do with it.
But I feel like the book data is something we've been working towards and that's, you know, the that's a Thing that Makes hardcover special and you know, that's very easily exploitable if it's out in the open and I'm guessing with especially with you know competition that can be
doing things that is a concern. But yeah, that said, I'd love for us to find a model where we can actually involve a lot of people in the development. I was looking at Kel.com, the Kel and the competitor. And for me, they're one of the best open source companies.
in terms of how they structure everything. Of course they're funded by a huge number of really big investment firms, which also helps because they have salaries and they can set bounties. But the whole effort, really good. And for something like calendars, I think it paid off.
Ste (504:15:46.179)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's been catching on. I think as a product, they're definitely better in terms of how they do stuff. And I've been watching the founder post about how many contributions they get for issues they post. So some of the issues, I think, they post, and they ask for contributions, which is something we could do as well. Some are just submitted by the community.
but it's a really good flow of people trying to enhance the product for many reasons. I think the deaf community, especially if they get that recognition, that they contributed to something that many people want to improve things for themselves. They want to...
do something with a product and the traditional way they would do it is, you know, ask for support, go through the whole, add a feature to the roadmap thing and wait for the team to get to it two years later. Open source means that you can start the pull request and, you know, the team approves it and if it's good, then that's it. So that's like almost magic that you can change your product.
So many people have been working on for so much time to better suit you just by doing that. And yeah, it's one of the things I'm hoping, will happen a lot with hardcover. We've got a lot of like talented devs who are using it.
Ste (504:18:00.719)
Yeah, exactly. I mean, I do stuff for recognition. I contributed to a few open source projects with little design things. And yeah, only that recognition, having someone say, OK, you have actually helped us improve it. And if you get a badge that you can display on your hardcover profile, that to me would be even better.
Ste (504:18:41.783)
Well, we are approaching the new quarter. I mean, we're fully in the new quarter, but for us after we do the next JS migration, there's a question of what else will we be working on? And I guess there are a few things on the table. And I think for me at this point,
it's important to establish what is the next step in making Harker Verber and which angle are we gonna approach, because I think the big three things for us right now are discussions, which means adding custom content, apart from reviews to books and replying to people on the feed, authors, which means creating...
an author profile and even more than that, some kind of support for authors that goes beyond what any other app does currently. And I think the third thing would be badges, which plays into the gamification part of hardcover. And I think it would be really good to have an app that actually makes reading fun.
I don't think there's that on the market and I think could be an opportunity for us to make something that's engaging in that way. So those are the big three things. I'm wondering like which one is the most important and which one would be.
the thing to tackle.
Ste (504:20:50.085)
It's a tough one.
Ste (504:21:25.899)
Yes.
Ste (504:22:29.379)
Yeah.
Ste (504:22:33.195)
Yeah, that's a very good overview and it emphasizes how hard the mission to run this kind of project is. Because sometimes product choices, I mean not sometimes, always product choices are the most important thing you can decide. This is what makes or breaks big companies. I know that Steve Jobs rule where he...
I think the company just told everybody to think about like 10 things that they can do next and everybody said those 10 things and out of those like hundreds of things that piled up, they only like three things or so. So they focused on three things out of, well, it's Apple, so probably there's a million things they could do. But I feel we're kind of like in the same dilemma right now.
It's interesting what kind of angle would be better suited. I think a priority for hardcover right now is getting the most users, getting the most readers on the platform. And from that point of view, I was thinking what is among those features the one most likely to generate that number of users.
For a social app, I guess, because we are, at the end of the day, a social app, even though we're a book tracking app as well, like Goodreads, but there's also the social side that powers the discovery side. So, the discussions would play into that. The badges would also play into that a bit, but not that much.
Uh, and, uh, authors could also be, you know, something, uh, that's good, potentially bring in outside audiences. If we can get authors that have already have a base, uh, to post updates on, uh, hardcover that would be a win for us. Of course, if they could actually like post updates through discussions, uh, that would be like ideal.
Ste (504:24:57.449)
Um...
It's also, have you seen threads? Have you, uh,
Ste (504:25:11.783)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's pretty funny that there are all of these apps that basically let people talk amongst themselves and everything to what end because we're only going to have posts about books if we make discussions. But that also might be interesting because we'll have posts about books and everybody likes to talk about books.
focus to have a network dedicated to that apart from, you know, having a place on a network that's sort of dedicated, but not having that built in. So you can discover books on TikTok, you can discover books on Instagram, you can discover books on threads now or on Twitter. But...
There's millions and millions of users who are talking about books on all these networks without those discussions leaving a trail. I think that's like the important thing that I was trying to think, why would we make another app with discussions? What would be like the, yeah.
Ste (504:27:51.811)
Yeah, that's a really big thing. That's exactly what the trail should be like. And the difference is that we have the book page. So every discussion that mentions a book would be tied to the book page. I was someone on a community called Bookworm, I think, linked to the book page.
to hardcover and we got some users from there. And I checked the community out and many of the, so it's a book server and it's structured in a way that there are a lot of topics for each author. So you have one for Jane Austen, you have one for Edgar Allan Poe and all the people who read books by that author are posting there. So...
That's like one huge use case for us that's validated. So people are using Discord to do that in a way that's not purpose-built. I mean, you can't search outside. So it's a closed environment. You know, you have that author, you have that discussion on Discord. It's a freaking island in the middle of nowhere that, you know, if you're an Edgar Allen Poe author and you somehow have to find the Bookware community and you somehow have to know that they have an Edgar Allen Poe.
which is your favorite author, let's say, sub channel, and you go there and you talk to all the people, and then you have to search through all the discussions about all the books that Edgar Allan Poe wrote. That's like a huge reach. It's a huge reach, yeah.
Ste (504:29:43.576)
you
Ste (504:30:02.7)
Yeah.
Ste (504:30:11.787)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And the keyword threads in there, I mean, I think it's a reason like Zuck actually went for threads. They're really easy to find. If it's a thread discussions, you can have an entry point at any point in the discussion. You know who posted first, you know who replied to that post, you know who replied to those replies.
So it's kind of similar to how we first thought about the discussions model for books. For I mean, seeing that happen in a community where it got lots of engagement and where, yeah, like you said, it's suboptimal. It's not, you know, a chat isn't the place you'd want to like talk and analyze the book. If, you know, you've got a favorite poem from
some, or you have a favorite Jane Austen book, what are you gonna do? Are you gonna search the whole chat for mentions of that discussion? Who are you gonna reply to? Whereas if you have an author page for Jane Austen and if you have a page for each book written by Jane Austen and on the author page you have all the discussions for the books that were tagged on hardcover,
by Jane Austen and on the book page you have all the discussions related to each book that was tagged on hardcover. You have like the discovery sets and you actually have like an entry point in any type of discovery, any type of discussion related to that book which makes it findable and I think that's like...
the main goal of social networks to make discussions findable, that you feel that you can enter a discussion. And with books, I think it's pretty interesting, because for other topics, if you want to talk about sound.
Ste (504:32:28.367)
climate change. You can go on Twitter and find discussions about climate change and argue with people there. With books, it's like specific. You like a book, you go to that book page, you find people who like that book as well. It's a really good, I think, social use case as well because I would like to find people with the same, you know.
taste in books. Just like on letterboxd you like to find people with the same taste in movies.
Ste (504:33:24.303)
Yeah.
Ste (504:33:30.412)
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, and it works. It works really well. Do they have replies to reviews? And they don't. Oh, hard. OK.
Ste (504:33:48.491)
Yeah, yeah, I mean, technically I get why discussions are so, you know, hard to nail, I guess. But for us, I think also the way our tech stack works and, you know, the way you've built the backend, it's clean enough to make such a move feasible, easier than it would be for...
other apps built on other text decks. So.
Ste (504:34:47.483)
Oh God, that's a tough question. I think discussions are sounding easier than they actually are. So I think they would need to be approached from a design and research perspective first to see how we can structure them better. So we should...
them without tangling. There's a risk to make them so tangled at first, that it would mess up things for us later down the line. So I guess approaching and thinking about them for a period of time, but focusing on developing that would be a good choice because I think we'll find a lot of things that we can optimize.
before actually writing any code, and it would make writing the code easier. Badges I'm excited about because they're graphic. I was even thinking of making custom badges, maybe with mid-journey even, for custom stuff, as well as the badges that we were thinking about using the Font Awesome icons. So...
From a design perspective, I'm really excited about those as well, especially what we can do in terms of tying them to goals, tying them to your incentive to go on hardcover and earn those badges. I think they would also play a part in discussion as well, because if we have that.
So social feed needs a priority. You can't show everything as it happens. You have to show things that are from people who are more engaged in the network and for things you are more likely to be interested in first. And I think badges, especially the ones related to genre are gonna help a lot with discussions because we can...
Ste (504:37:10.651)
think of a way to structure the feed so that people who read horror, for instance, get shown feed items from people who have a lot of horror in their library, who have a lot of horror in their reviews first. So that's like a very smart way, I guess, to make everything relevant towards people who, you know, right now the feed is mingled. If you're reading...
young adult books, you can find like anything in the feed. If you would like find young adults, more young adults, like posts from readers who read a lot of young adult books, and we would find a way to show that first, that would be like a huge like valid...
like thing that you can't find anywhere else. I mean, this is.
I don't know. Yeah.
Ste (504:38:46.787)
Yes.
Ste (504:39:17.951)
Yes, yeah, that's very, that's very good. And you reminded me of a thing that's been discussed in the Discord community when you mentioned reviews. Someone complained about preview bombing, where there are a lot of people who have, you know, the bad intentions to come to Goodreads and leave a ton
Ste (504:39:47.835)
have a way to rank those reviews. So you would be seeing reviews from someone who's been reviewing horror books. And let's say, I don't know, it's a horror sci-fi. If you have reviews from someone who has very good, like number of those reviews, and they have the badge for horror, they have the badge for sci-fi, we could potentially...
push those reviews up so you would see those reviews. And if review bombing happens, so people would be creating an account, let's say some TikTok star says, okay, go after this author. And they would submit 10,000 reviews for a book that were rating it badly and they were like.
They would be credible. I mean, there's no way to verify them. If they said they read the book and they rate it one star and they submit like a plausible review, there's no way we can flag that. That's something other networks are also like confronted with. But if we showed the reviews from people who are actually like, engaged in hardcover and they have those badges.
those 10,000 reviews you won't be seeing first. So you'd only see maybe the five reviews that matter and the others would just be irrelevant. That's a way to influence the score. And I think long-term, the quality content, I mean, what people actually think about the book and who thinks what about the book. So like you said, if it's a librarian,
with a lot of reading in some genres. And they have something to say about the book. You should see that first. You should see their review first. So the style review doesn't even matter. So I think for us focusing on the quality of the review, so the actual, you know, person who writes it, the actual review itself.
Ste (504:42:15.811)
would be more important than if the book is two stars.
Ste (504:43:04.259)
Yeah, that's really good. I forgot about the actual like match score that could be like very, very useful in this case. Yeah, that sounds, that sounds great. And you also could get like the review from the people in your network. So if 10,000 people outside your network would review Bombo book and you would like have two stars as a general, like hardcover score because of that.
if you would prefer to see or if you would instead of seeing all reviews See the review from your network the review square from your network. It would basically weeds everything every Every one of those reviews out and it would make it like the only network That's like for you and for your network
Ste (504:44:20.855)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, again, the matched score, we can use that. I mean, they don't even have to be people you follow. We can just, and this is also like a discovery mechanism for finding other readers with good scores. Yeah, like degrees of separation.
Yeah.
Ste (504:45:00.951)
Yeah, I think those two things have a really high chance of propping each other up. And then if we think about the third thing as well, that would play really nicely after we get these done because authors would have a way to reach out to their audience. And if we make that setup where...
you can actually submit a book and not have it threatened by review bonding or actually have a way to filter out the most important things that the likeliest people to read that book are to, yeah, make it so that you can see those things first. That would be like a huge, huge win for authors as well. Afterwards, of course.
So that kind of like puts it puts a priority on everything. Yeah. But yeah, I agree. I think approaching badges and discussions at the same time, maybe implementing badges first, because that seems like easier also technically. And it's fun. You know, we can.
Ste (504:46:26.415)
Yes.
Ste (504:46:31.779)
Yeah, the profile page, especially with the OG images, is going to be huge. I was also thinking of some snapshots that we can take ourself on Instagram that people like to post their top 10 books as an image on Instagram. And I think we could generate that, like we generate the image.
the OG image, the OG image is also gonna be like, if you wanna share your list of favorite books, they're gonna appear on any social network. And I was also thinking about, you know, the moments we take off. And I think for a social network, the conclusion I came to is that it takes off when, I mean, marketing is, you know, important, I guess, but it takes off when
you overcome that threshold where people feel the urge to share it on all the other social networks and you know, you get a heavy influx from everywhere. So if we pass that threshold, I think that's like the organic like tipping point where it actually happens. At least that's my theory.
Ste (504:47:58.411)
Yeah, and we're doing steps in that direction. I think the OG images would also be important. The profile page will also be important. And at some point, who knows, maybe we'll get that. It's a good time to have that influx. In terms of social networks, it's so shaky at the moment. That's why people like Zuckerberg copy the most, like the biggest maybe.
Social, well, Facebook is the biggest, but yeah, one of the biggest social networks, like in what? A couple of months and just like release it. So it's interesting territory. Reddit is all in shambles. They shut down Apollo. All the subreddits are, I mean, there's like millions of people on those subreddits just talking about books. That's like, yeah.
Ste (504:49:28.451)
Yeah.
Ste (504:49:31.981)
Yeah.
Ste (504:49:35.631)
Definitely, yeah.
Ste (504:49:51.003)
Yeah, well, I think Bastodon is like complicated and generally like federated. I was, we had that discussion in the Discord, in our Discord about making things federated. And I think, you know, you were right after it has to happen after a while when we established, you know, what posts people are going to actually like post on hardcover. But
uh, like, uh, threads did it. They just said, you know, at some point we'll be on the Federa. So I think they're thinking the same thing. Let's see where this lands and we'll think of Federation at that point where it's settled. Uh, so yeah, we, we could do the same, but I feel like we could also offer a place where, you know, you choose like your role because you can be passive. You can just like track books on hardcover.
Or you can be very active. You can be even an author. You can be a reviewer. You can be a book blogger. You can be a book type. So the whole spectrum, you know, you don't get that on other networks. If you're on threads, there's only one default mode. You have to share like crazy on Twitter. You have to argue with everybody on Facebook. I don't know. Whatever you want Facebook on Instagram, we have to post pictures. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. See the use case.
The one you see.
Ste (504:51:22.576)
Yes.
Ste (504:51:32.083)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That's at the core. That's like the default throw and even that with badges will be like really, really good. Yeah.
Ste (504:52:00.016)
Yes.
Ste (504:52:20.119)
Yeah, that sounds great. I'm really excited about design part of things as well. I think I've already began putting things in motion. So that's really good. The badges are going to be really nice. Yeah.
Ste (504:53:19.615)
Yeah, that'd be great. I mean, as flexible as possible, I think is the way to go for this system. And, you know, we should have like the book level, the reading level, you know, you read five horror books, you read 10 horror books, you read 25 horror books, but also at the social and book level.
level and the achievement level because you know if you're someone who doesn't read and you just read a book or maybe even your first like 10 pages that could be an achievement I mean why not we could make like a smaller badge or something just like as a token so yeah there's a lot for that I think we should like think about this like really thoroughly and make it as fun as possible also
Ste (504:54:14.498)
defense is giving.
Ste (504:54:26.397)
Okay.
Ste (504:54:35.771)
Okay.
Ste (504:54:57.999)
Okay, gotcha, gotcha. Okay, yeah, that sounds good. Also in the OG images, we're gonna use the hell out. When you share your profile, you're gonna have those badges. So it's gonna look like really great. I'm thinking like Scouts, you know, how you show his like the really cool badges and you just have a card with all of those. If I had that, I mean, I'd be like really incentivized to like use hardcover to get those. So.
Ste (504:55:51.276)
Yeah.
Ste (504:55:56.279)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, same. I mean, we can have like a roster, maybe the slash badge page where we show the badges you've earned and we maybe show in grayscale and really dim down the badges you can earn so people know that's also, you know, when you don't know what you're going to earn, it's kind of like chaotic. You don't know what you're supposed to do, but if you know, you know.
I read 25 higher books and I get this like third level badge, you're gonna read up to 25 higher books. It also like gives you a...
Ste (504:56:33.659)
what's it called, an idea of the level, you know, because you don't know, are you gonna get a badge every horror book you read, or are you gonna get, the way we thought of it initially is like four steps, like first horror book, five horror books, 10, 25, 50, 100, whoever gets to 100, that's like, yeah. So.
Ste (504:57:14.84)
No.
Ste (504:57:23.415)
Yeah, that's true. Yeah. It also clean up, give us an occasion to clean up the tax system a bit, or like choose what tax to actually show. So that'd be good as well. Sanitizing those.
Ste (504:57:51.565)
Yeah.
Ste (504:57:55.679)
Yeah, it sounds great. Yeah, I think we already have like really good like starting points for that. Nice. Okay.
Yeah.
Ste (504:58:11.223)
Yeah, they're going to be really fun. I can't wait for those. Great. Well, I think I'm going to have to leave soon because my son is waking up. So I have baby duties. Yeah. Oh, yeah. On the clock. That's perfect. Good timing. Yeah.
Ste (504:58:35.415)
Yeah, thanks. Have a good one. Bye.
Yay.