Making Literature Social: Readmill Networks Lonely Bookworms

Traditionally, reading has been a solitary activity. But two Berlin-based Swedes hope to change this. They're close to launching new software called Readmill, which promises to create a social network for bookworms to share their reading habits, margin notes and recommendations.

The pool table in the living room is covered by a wooden slab, a second room is full of boxes, and David Kjelkerud still has no idea how the coffee machine in the kitchen works. There's simply no time for such trivialities. He is, after all, feverishly building a start-up. Two months ago he moved from Stockholm to Berlin with his co-partner Henrik Berggren to catapult book reading into the Internet age.

The duo is finalizing the last pieces of Readmill, an intelligent bookmarker for digital books. In their shared office space in Berlin's central Mitte district, also occupied by start-up Amen, a flurry of development is going on, interrupted by tech conferences, presentations for investors and the search for cooperation from E-book industry players.

The goal is to transform book reading into a social activity, bringing together readers via their e-readers, and to grab a share of the booming E-book market. Other companies have their eye on social reading as well, such as the platform LovelyBooks. But Readmill, set to go live soon, wants to take the idea even further.

Both avid readers, Berggren and Kjelkerud have an ambivalent relationship with books. Kjelkerud calls them "somehow cold and unsocial." Reading is solitary, and anyone who wants to discuss a passage must first shut their book, he explains. Berggren says that even digital books and the internet-connected reading devices haven't changed things much. "There are many E-book services, but none of them are really social," he explains. What was missing were good ideas to network books and readers with each other.

Last.fm for Books

Readmill, an intelligent bookmark for e-books, is their answer. The program looks over the reader's shoulder, keeping a protocol of their progress and showing sections that have been highlighted and commented upon by other readers. This way Readmill members create a semi-public reference list for their books, giving them the possibility of alerting friends to interesting passages for discussion.

Music fans will recognize this principle from Last.fm, a music website that analyzes listening patterns to develop new artist and concert suggestions, in addition to bringing users with similar tastes together. Like Last.fm, Readmill's software operates on three levels: as a background process for reading applications, as a web service that processes reading habits, and as a reading app for the iPad, where members can upload e-books that aren't copyright protected.

Also similar to Last.fm, Readmill gets interesting when as many other e-book reading programs and devices as possible feed the Readmill central server with data. By year's end, Berggren told SPIEGEL ONLINE, the company hopes to be supporting enough reading programs so that it could, theoretically at least, be combined with 80 percent of all e-books.

Publisher Partnerships in Progress

It isn't an impossible goal. Currently there aren't that many different reading devices and programs. Publishers and reading device manufacturers will also benefit from Readmill, its creators say. "Ultimately, Readmill is about discovering books," Kjelkerud says. With partnership negotiations with publishers underway, the possibility of Readmill adding a book purchasing function isn't far off.

But the company isn't just focused on e-books. To help connect old-fashioned book lovers through Readmill, they've also created an android app called ReadTracker, with which users can also follow their reading progress on paper.

Berggren and Kjelkerud say that it was only their move to Berlin from Stockholm in March 2011 which made the realization of their social book dream possible. It was both a challenge and an opportunity to free themselves from social obligations to enable a sole focus on their project.

"It was so hard to always have to reject my friends' bar invitations," Kjelkerud says. Berggren adds: "With such a move you're also making it clear to yourself that now things are serious, that now we have to push through."