Bkkeepr.com - Twitter What You Read

Bkkeepr is a tool that utilizes Twitter to help you to keep track of what books you read, and also lets you share that information with others. To start using the service, you only need to have a Twitter account and direct it to follow “bkkeepr.” You then send bkkeepr updates via reply or direct message. You can update via the Internet or SMS text messages. Bkkeepr is set up so you can keep track of information like when you start or finish a book, or you can make notes on or bookmark specific pages. To add a book, you must enter the ISBN number, which will direct bkkeepr not only to the book but to the specific edition. On your personal bkkeepr site, you can see a summary of the books you read and whatever information you entered about them, as well as a picture of the cover. You can share your page with friends or browse other users’ pages from the bkkeepr homepage. Bkkeepr is a project of booktwo.org, which is a blog and project that investigates the intersection of literature and technology.

"Want to remember what you read? Want to share your dog-eared pages, and see what everyone else dog-eared? Love LibraryThing, but are always forgetting to add your books? bkkeepr helps you do it, wherever you are… bkkeepr lets you track your reading and bookmark on the go, via the web and SMS."

There are countless Twitter applications out there, but this one stands out as one that might actually be useful. You can use it to keep a personal record of what books you read or how long you take to read them, and you can share this information with friends. You can also bookmark pages or make notes, and it is possible to do all this from your mobile device via SMS, so you could even use bkkeepr to send yourself notes about the book if you don’t have a pen with you or it’s not your book to write in.

Would using Twitter to keep track of your reading or to make notes as you read take away from the experience of simply sitting down and reading a book? Are the commands you must message to bkkeepr to update it a bit too complicated to really be useful on-the-go? For instance, if you are reading a book with ISBN # 9781841493343 and want to note that page 73 is “important,” you’d have to send the following message:
@bkkeepr 9781841493343 73 "important"