Simon & Schuster has launched Pulse It, a book social networking site where 14- to 18-year-olds can read and review new S&S titles online, create profiles, communicate with authors and other members, and earn points redeemable for prizes. The initiative is similar to Penguin UK‘s Spinebreakers, which launched in 2007.
The site grew out of the company’s earlier p-book initiative, the Pulse Advisory Board, which had 3,000 teenage members who received free books each month in exchange for providing feedback. “It was a lot to manage in terms of mailing lists, it was costly, and we had a waiting list of kids to get on,” says Adam Rothberg, S&S VP Corporate Communications. The teens provided an answer to the problem when “unbidden, they started jumping on our Simon & Schuster message boards. So we said, you know, we’ve got a waiting list, they’re online, let’s build this site that gives them books and allows them to do what they normally do anyway, all online.”
Pulse It members can read one book a month from a selection of two recently released or soon-to-be-published titles. The online reading software has been adapted from the software used on the company’s adult site, Rothberg said, to “make it more compatible for the community functions we’re looking to build.” Users can save their place in the book, participate in discussions about it from directly within the software, and post their reviews to Facebook.
The two book selections this month are Pure by Terra Elan McVoy and Girl Stays in the Picture by Melissa de la Cruz. The title selection (and site design) suggest that Pulse It is aimed at girls, and they’re reviewing away, generally giving Girl Stays in the Picture a big thumbs down. “very boring. I didnt like it at all,” wrote hg2008, while haleyknitz said “the plot line seems to be mediocre” and Lollyheart thinks “on a scale 1 to ten its a 3.”
