Booklamp Beta(?), first thoughts.

Aaron Stanton’s super secret project is now live, in beta.  Booklamp.org is a book match system similar to Pandora for music.

When you watch the video and play with the interface, examine the graphs, you’ll begin to understand the depths of the data we’re able to mine from a full text novel. You can see how the technology works, combining full-text analysis with self-learning systems to produce one of the most advanced book analysis systems in the world… we hope.

This approach allows book search programs to utilize the full text of a book in ways far beyond traditional keyword analysis or socially driven networks. At least that’s the idea - you’ll have to judge for yourself if we’re onto something worthwhile.

So I gave it a spin.  First thoughts is that I had a hard time even finding a book I liked.  Being in beta there selection at this point is more from demonstrative purposes than anything else.  But I found George Orwell’s 1984.  Here’s what I got back:

The USA Patriot Act - 98% Match
People in the Dark by Aaron Stanton - 58% Match
Antarctica by Kim Stanley - 58% Match
Specimens by Fred Saberhagen - 17% Match
Ambulance Ship by James White - 15% Match
Birth of Flux and Anchor by Jack L Chalker - 16% Match
Master of Flux and Anchor by Jack L Chalker - 18% Match
Hell’s Gate by David Weber - 16% Match

When I searched on Amazon for 1984, by comparison I got much more of the usual suspects:
Animal Farm,
A Clockwork Orange,
Lord of the Flies,
Anthem. 

I also got some interesting picks:
America: Freedom to Fascism,
The Magnificent Seven DVD,
Plato: Republic.

I think the important thing to remember is that this is beta, but honestly I don’t know if I would even categorize this as an alpha.  This release is just meant to demo the functionality to companies that may be interested in acquiring the technology (which they’ve wrapped up in patents).

It is impossible to do a side by side comparison with Amazon because Booklamp doesn’t have an even partially built out database.  I am more than a little surprised by the 98% match to the USA Patriot Act and that apparently Aaron has written his own book.

While I understand the purpose of the release I’m afraid that Aaron may have set expectations a little high with all the hype.  If users expect to find anything that they can actually use, I think they’ll be disappointed. 

I’m hopeful that Aaron isn’t putting all of his eggs in the acquisition basket and is looking at how he can build out a real functioning business.  If the technology works even close to as well as Pandora does for music then they could have an incredibly useful product.

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