On 18th-19th May a group of hundreds of digital designers, engineers, programmers, and entrepreneurs spent 36 hours in a Publishing Hackathon. The mission? To develop new approaches to digital book discovery.
“How do we help people find the right book at the right time?
“Book discovery needs innovation. It’s never been easier to get a book into a reader’s hands—just one click. But, with over 200,000 books published each year on every topic imaginable, how do people find out about them? There are fewer bookstores to help readers discover exciting authors and ideas. There’s currently no digital experience that replicates the serendipity of browsing bookshelves. Recommendation engines are fairly primitive – they know what you bought, but they don’t know why. In book discovery, there is an opportunity for disruption waiting to be explored.”
Prizes are up to $10,000 and include the opportunity for participants to present their projects to leading VCs, top publishing executives, and tech experts at Book Expo America 2013.
Check out the 30 best ideas to come out of the event here:
http://publishinghackathon.challengepost.com/submissions
