HarperCollins Book Recommendation Site 'Book Army' Won't Launch This Year After All
This story was written by David Kaplan.
HarperCollins has been aggressively building up its social media offerings lately, but the News Corp (NYSE: NWS) publisher is going a little slower than some had expected when it comes to rolling out book recommendations site Book Army. The site, which is in private beta, will be up sometime next year, though a date hasn't been specified. NewMediaAge reported that the site was supposed to launch in both the UK and U.S. this fall, but a HarperCollins rep told us that the company just wants to proceed carefully and make sure all potential problems are ironed out.
The plan is for Book Army to list every book with an ISBN. HarperCollins also plans to make use of its News Corp siblings, such as BSkyB (NYSE: BSY) and Fox Interactive's MySpace, to promote Book Army. In the meantime, HarperCollins will continue building its books social networking site Authonomy, which launched in September in the UK. There are no concrete plans to introduce Authonomy in the U.S. anytime soon.
By David Kaplan