Newcomers Paradise discussion
Connecting With Others
date
newest »
newest »
Mod
For Iphone and Android users there is an app called amino. The app has separate apps depending on peoples interest. I downloaded the "Books" amino app.
Some things you can do in amino are post blog posts that your friends can see, post a poll, question, discussion or host a chat (private or public).
Therefore amino is simply a community of people with similar interests. I have made many friends. I enjoy reading other peoples blog feeds. People give updates on books, post short stories or poems, post interesting thoughts or perspectives and there are even detailed tutorials.
One of my favourite aspects is the instant messaging "chat" feature. For example I know of some goodreads book clubs where users post their thoughts in forums. But with amino it is as though you are text messaging with a friend. You don't have to go to skype or google hangouts to chat with people. Best of all, there is total anonymity.
In late September I saw a post on the front page of the app. The person said they were starting a book club and were asking for people to join. I'm a person who has just started to read for enjoyment so I thought a club would be the perfect place to start. The club promised to have weekly discussions to give our perspectives and opinions about a specific book. The goal was to finish 1 book a month.
Here is where I started to have my doubts about this club. You see the person in charge of this club wanted people to audition for this club. I soon realized that this club wasn't like Newcomer's Paradise where we just take in anyone. The person in charged wanted to use a bit of exclusivity, they valued quality over quantity. To me this makes a lot of sense because you want people who are committed to the club and want to participate. For me I guess I found the process to be annoying and cumbersome. After I auditioned I remember having to reaffirm my resolve to join the group multiple times. I was kind of annoyed by this because the point of auditioning is to show interest, I felt as though the people in charge were letting the power get to their head.
There were soon more problems. If some of us were to complain about not being able to do X or Y we would be immediately shot down and questioned about our resolve to stay in this group. A lot of us were frustrated because we felt as though we were not given enough notice and were expected to just accept it. It was soon found out that the people in charge were themselves busy, they took a trip and couldn't post updates. The weekly discussions that were promised was then turned to a monthly meeting. I just felt it was hypocritical, the leaders expected us to keep our promises while they themselves failed to hold up their end of the bargain. I felt there was a lack of respect. It is something that I hope improves.
Today we had out first meeting, it is November 7th. Therefore it took more than a month for everyone to meet up. We had read 350 pages of the novel "The Book Thief" and were given questions to answer. One thing about the questions was that they were incomplete and posted late; for me it wasn't that big of a deal because I procrastinated and waited till the last day to answer the questions. I do think it would have been nice to have them while reading so that we would have something to watch out for.
I was so amazed by how well the meeting went considering all that came before it. The chat feature I mentioned worked perfectly. We all gave our perspectives, it was as though we were all itching to voice our opinions. The moderator made sure that everyone was answering, and everyone was. It really seemed as though all that exclusivity and all the planning was worth it. People would post interesting opinions and thoughts that never crossed my mind and we would all just bounce of each other. If the chat ever got stagnant the moderator would then ask the next question. I believe that there was about 7 or 8 people in the chat, 3 of the members couldn't make it. We talked so much that the meeting lasted almost 2 hours. There were more questions that we just didn't have time for so we decided on meeting next saturday to finish off the remaining questions.
Overall I would say I'm quite surprised by how well this experience turned out. The app itself is wonderful, it is functional and has a nice clean and easy to understand interface. The community itself seems small in comparison to the other amino communities, but it's starting to grow. Currently I see a lot of young people on the app, people in their teens to mid twenties, I would like to see more people on here who are older. I think the main reason why the community is so young is because the technology is new and young people tend to be the first people to adopt new technology. Therefore I would implore all of you to download the app and give it a try, it is really easy to use. My future hopes for the group is that more respect is given to the members, however based on the great conversation we all had today it feels as though the moderators know we are serious about the club and will soon give us a bit more respect.
If any of you do download the app, please feel free to friend me, my username is the same as the one on Goodreads, seal308.
Also feel free to come back and write down your own opinions and experiences using the app.
seal308 wrote: "Amino Book Club Experience"I haven't been very active on goodreads lately but long time no see! i just joined amino books, since you gave it a lot of praise.
I'm not sure where to begin with the chats since most seem to be dead... any suggestions?
Mod
I haven't been very active on goodreads lately but long time no see! i just joined amino books, since you gave it a lot of praise.
I'm not sure where to..."
The public chats work well on more popular amino apps like Anime Amino where there is a large amount of people because chats happen all the time.
For me I found a posting about a book club on the featured page and made friends that way.
What I would do is look for people who comment on other peoples pages or check recent blog posts and comment on their pages, like their pages. Then start a private message with them, just click on their profile and on the profile page there is a way to have a private message. Look for people who seem active on the community, because there are some people who only dip their toes and decide to leave.
For books amino I think it works best when you connect with people on a more personal level at first. Find common interests and expand upon them.
Once you make a few friends, perhaps start a reading group with those friends.
You'd be surprised by the joy of waking up to see messages from your friends angry or sad about reading a particular part, and sharing you own opinions and feelings with each other.
This thread is for talking about how you interact with others. Things like joining book clubs, groups, other book sites besides Goodreads etc.
I feel it's important to share personal experiences to help newcomers know what to do and what not to do. To learn from our mistakes.