Barnes and Nobles Goes Social Networking

Look who is jumping into the social networking bandwagon? Famous and big time book publisher, Barnes & Noble has just launched its social networking site called – My B&N. With the popularity of web 2.0/social networking sites LibraryThing and Shelfari, it is no wonder that such an established commercial book publisher Barnes & Noble would dip its hands on this phenomenon.

According to Barnes & Noble, My B&N is your central hub for all your bn.com experience. The new social networking site lets you do the following:

• create pen names and choose avatars
• add titles to your B&N personal library
• create lists of your B&N favorite books, movies, music and other bn.com people
• create an EssentialLists which could be of any topic under the sun
• choose whether to make your B&N page public or private
• track reviews and product ratings

Those are simple features and yet good enough for a starting campaign towards making its services and products more social and in-tune with the times.

Among those features, the most “social” and could be a rival to established web 2.0 services, LibraryThing and Shelfari, is the My B&N’s – My Library feature. It lets you keep track of every book, DVD, or CD you have in your collection and even those you’ve always wanted to have. It also reminds you of your Barnes & Noble purchases. When you are browsing through the Barnes&Nobles catalog, you can easily add titles that you find interesting to your My Library collection using a button. And you don’t have worry about being compelled to purchase the said titles, B & N will not require you to do so. The feature is simply for the fun of building your My Library collection.

Additionally, you can also display book titles that you are currently reading with the “Reading Now” button. You can select as many books as you want provided that you are actually reading it currently.

And of course, My B & N would not be a social networking site, if you can share what you have been doing with your My B & N account. You can actually share them with other sites including Facebook, Digg and Delicious.

If you’re a Barnes & Noble fanatics, you may want to try out this new social networking facility. A My B&n link can be found at the top of any page on bn.com. All you need to do is click on that link and start creating your My B & N profile. Have fun!

Join Baratunde Thurston (left), The Onion’s Director of Digital and author of How to Be Black, for an entertaining look at creative social media campaigns in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. Other speakers include Morin Oluwole (Facebook), Tim Devane (bitly), and SocialTimes' writer Devon Glenn.   Register now.