"In the Same Vein" book search from Zola Books

Zola Books is about a year old, and when I first saw them demo what they're up to I loved it. You can read my gushing article over here at RedHatProject.com.

Right now they're putting together a social search engine for book recommendations, and what they've mocked up here: https://zolabooks.com/recommendations is pretty amazing. Note: These features are not yet functional, so what I write below is my own speculation based on what is on that page.

The most exciting thing overall is that they are all features that are on the readers' side. Half of them contain the word "Friend," which is a great sign, and the others are about creative takes on connections between popular books.

Here are the highlights:

1. Friends are Reading: This is pretty self-explanatory. And it hits the main offline recommendation method of friends recommending books.
2. "In The Same Vein": This might be my favorite one. It's the screenshot in the lead photo. It looks like they're using some algorithm in the background that recommends similar books by different authors to a book you input. That's awesome.
3. Recommendations From Friends: Similar to #1, but more explicit.
4. Popular Near You: This is place-based, which could be really cool for self-publishing authors and independent presses.
5. Next Book In Series: This came up a few times in the survey I did. People want to know what's next from an author they like. It's not that hard to find that out now, but I can understand why it's part of this page.
6. Friends' Favorites: This is a passive version of #1 and #3, and I like it because it isn't time-based.

Again, these features are not functional yet, but they are there for us to look at. And according to the top of the mock-up page, they are coming soon!

What do you think?

Image source: Zola Books screenshot