As the electronic age puts physical bookstores and libraries under increasing threat, Local Books is a great example of how, by encouraging a resurgence of consumer interest at a local level, new technologies can be used to provide a shot in the arm for traditional outlets. Launched in January, it's a free iPhone app that allows users to search an area for bookstores, libraries and literary events such as readings, book discussions and signings.

Local Books is powered by LibraryThing Local—a crowdsourced database of 51,000 bookstores and libraries around the world. Users can search for these "venues" by name or by location. The details provided for venues include maps plus (when available) descriptions, photographs, links, and information about upcoming events at those establishments. Venues and events can be sorted by distance, name, type and date.

At present Local Books does not show inventories from bookstores and libraries. We wouldn't be surprised to see this feature available from them or from someone else in the near future. Could that be you? (Related: Online platform connecting booklovers.)

Website: www.librarything.com/blog/2010/01/local-books-iphone-application.php
Contact: tim@librarything.com

Spotted by: Los Angeles Times via Jim Stewart

Back in 2008 we wrote about Authonomy, HarperCollins's Sellaband-like effort to recruit the crowds to help spot the next bestseller. Suggesting the concept may be starting to stick, a new Dutch website has teamed up with not one but three book publishers on a crowdsourced effort to choose what gets published next.

Aspiring writers register for free on TenPages and post the first 10 pages or more of their book. Those pages then become viewable to the site's prospective shareholders, who can buy up to 200 shares in any book for EUR 5 each; a widget is available to help them promote their favourites among their own social networks. The books that sell 2,000 shares during the four months they remain active on the site—garnering EUR 10,000—get put into production at one of TenPages' partner publishers, which include Pearson, The Workers Press and The House of Books. Authors get paid EUR 1,000 from the initial funds raised, while the remainder is held over for publishing and promoting the final book. The author then has eight months to write the tome with the help of a professional editor.

For books that don't sell 2,000 shares after four months, investors get 80 percent of their money back. The site accepts submissions in virtually all genres with the exception of science books, it says. Following publication, authors earn standard royalties of 10 percent, while publishers earn 30 percent. Shareholders as a group earn 10 percent for up to four years, divided according to the number of shares they bought; in addition, their names appear in the back of the published books they helped discover.

Will this become the new model for publishing? Time will tell. In the meantime, one to watch! (Related: Crowd-finding the next blockbuster.)

Website: www.tenpages.com
Contact: www.tenpages.com/contact

Spotted by: Daniel Ogertschnig

It was back in 2003 that we began covering nethoods, as our sister site calls them, and since then GPS and mobile technologies have greatly increased locally focused possibilities. BlockChalk is a new site that aims to provide the online equivalent of a neighbourhood bulletin board where residents can use their mobile phones to leave location-based messages for other people in their community.

Billed as “the voice of your neighbourhood,” BlockChalk lets mobile phone users leave messages (“chalks,” as the service calls them) on their block, their street, at the coffee shop or anywhere they happen to be. Neighbourhood tips, restaurant recommendations, pothole alerts or even lost pets are all perfect candidates for location-tagged message topics that can be left on BlockChalk, which allows other users of the service in the same area to reply either publicly or privately. No signup is required to use the service, and BlockChalk never reveals a user's identity or exact location unless they specifically request it. The mobile application is now available for iPhone, Palm Pre and Android-based handsets, with Blackberry and Nokia support coming soon. Launched early this year, BlockChalk is now used in more than 114 countries, 8,700 cities and 13,700 or so neighborhoods. The Bay Area startup is also in the process of integrating its service with Twitter's new geo-enabled API, it says.

Besides helping to connect neighbours with each other and with a wealth of hyperlocal information, BlockChalk also promises a world of advertising opportunities for local businesses; for developers, an API is already available. One to partner with in your neck of the location-based woods...? (Related: Connecting neighbours and landlords online — More neighbourhood problem-solving: SeeClickFix.)

Website: www.blockchalk.com
Contact: contact@blockchalk.com

Spotted by: Judy McRae

There are ever more connections being forged between the online and offline worlds, as we've been noting regularly for years. We've already seen T-shirts printed with scannable QR codes, and now a Pennsylvania startup is adding flexibility to the concept by putting the codes on patches that can be affixed practically anywhere.

Pennsylvania-based Tikaro Interactive now offers a series of 2-by-4-inch, Velcro-backed patches with a “mysterious commando” design on top and a QR code on the bottom. The code on each p8tch, as they're called, is actually a URL that can be scanned with a smartphone. Initially it directs scanners to the domain “p8t.ch,” but patch owners can set the redirect target of the URL to whatever page they wish, much like with TinyURL or other URL shortening services. Bloggers, for instance, can redirect the code to their blog; videographers can send it to their latest YouTube video. Users can change the target URL as often as they like. Each patch costs USD 19.95, including one waterproof, machine-washable patch along with two rectangles of Velcro “loop” fabric for attachment to a jacket, backpack, laptop sleeve or other visible spot. Also included in the price are a pass phrase for redirecting the patch's target URL and two .png files of the associated QR code.

Just as consumers have long used real-world products and brands to tell the world who they are, so too have online destinations come to play a similar role. The opportunity? Create a digital lifestyle lubricant that lets users flaunt their online affiliations in the offline world, and you may receive some nice lifestyle lubrication in return! ;-) (Related: Google window decals link online & off for retailers — Bumper stickers recruit Twitter followers in traffic — Electronic business card forges online connections.)

Website: www.p8t.ch
Contact: john.young@gmail.com

Spotted by: Jeremy Pope

When we wrote about Gramlee's while-you-wait editing service back in 2008, we noted that there was still widespread opportunity for other contenders. So it wasn't too surprising recently to come across Wordy, a Danish company that provides quick-turnaround editing of a variety of documents written in English.

Academic text, corporate literature, blog posts and web content are all among the categories of copy that Wordy's professional editors can handle, with specialized staff available to work on material focused on specific subjects. Clients simply paste their text or upload a file onto Wordy.com, or use a plugin for integrated editing (the company offers a plug-in for WordPress, and an API for use with other publishing platforms). Wordy then instantly returns a free price quote along with an approximate delivery time—EUR 7.68 for 26 minutes of editing on a 440-word document, for instance. If the client accepts, a Wordy copy editor quickly checks the text for grammar, spelling, punctuation and structure—the company can currently accommodate both UK and US English—and returns it in ready-to-publish form. After that point, the client has two business days to accept the work or request a re-edit.

Wordy's 100-plus editors have already edited close to 80,000 words, with an average speed of roughly half an hour for a 400-word document. Over the course of this year, meanwhile, the company is hoping to scale its platform to begin editing documents written in other languages as well. One to try out—or get involved in?

Website: www.wordy.com
Contact: www.wordy.com/contact

Spotted by: John Greene