The document discusses two social reading projects - Pulse and Facebook Timeline integration - that Kobo undertook in 2011. Pulse allowed public comments but was designed for private notes, and required public posting to Facebook. The Facebook Timeline integration allowed frictionless sharing across platforms. Both projects went wrong, though the document does not specify how. It concludes by advising companies to implement social features across all platforms, understand their market's needs, and not trust Facebook.

1. Social Reading (a brief history
in getting it wrong)
Tony O’Donoghue
@iaboom

2. To be or not to be Social?
• Media Companies always face this question
• To integrate Social typically means adding the latest features
from Facebook
• Why do we do it?
• What Facebook doesn’t want you to know…

3. Kobo goes social
Focus on two projects:
• Pulse: Allow people to post Public Comments
• FB Timeline integration (frictionless sharing)

4. Pulse
• Design new features for VOX
• Developing private notes –
make those public.
• FB required to post publicly
• At the time, this was novel
• So what went wrong?

5. Timeline
• Timeline launch: Sept 2011
(Kobo an official partner)
• Frictionless Sharing
• FB worked with us on the
implementation
• Implemented cross-platform
• So what went wrong?

6. Conclusions
• Implement social features across all platforms
• Know your market: how are they using your products and
what do they want to do?
• Don’t trust Facebook