Belgians Are Hunting Books, Instead Of Pokemon

An anonymous reader shares a Reuters report:Inspired by the success of Pokemon Go, a Belgian primary school headmaster has developed an online game for people to search for books instead of cartoon monsters, attracting tens of thousands of players in weeks. While with Pokemon Go, players use a mobile device's GPS and camera to track virtual creatures around town, Aveline Gregoire's version is played through a Facebook group called "Chasseurs de livres" ("Book hunters"). Players post pictures and hints about where they have hidden a book and others go to hunt them down. Once someone has finished reading a book, they "release" it back into the wild. "While I was arranging my library, I realized I didn't have enough space for all my books. Having played Pokemon Go with my kids, I had the idea of releasing the books into nature," Gregoire told Reuters. Though it was only set up a few weeks ago, more than 40,000 people are already signed up to Gregoire's Facebook group.

Sounds Familiar...

[ewhac]

I think they just re-invented geo-caching, only with books.

Re:Sounds Familiar...

[safetyinnumbers]

bookcrossing.com, in fact.

popular in northern eu

[DrYak]

I think they just re-invented geo-caching, only with books.

(and PockemonGo itself is just virtual geo-caching, only leveraging Nintendo's brand recognition to bring it to the masses, Apple-style.)

in north-european countries, anonymous book exchanges seem quite popukar. there was a book-shelf in the middle of a small plaza near where i was living back in Germany. each day I passed in front of it, the contents seemed to change.

this Belgian teacher has mainly managed to make it popular with the kids by leveraging the PockemonGo craze. nice job!

Re:

[Solandri]

Or going to the library, looking up a book in the card catalog, and tracking down its location on the shelves.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

I like this idea better:
https://littlefreelibrary.org/

Thinking of building one.

Re:

[unixisc]

Only if all 'Belgians' are EU bureaucrats

Re:

[number6x]

All Belgians are Equal [wordpress.com].

All on my kindle

[unixisc]

All my books are on my kindle, and any others that I want/need to have will be there as well, instead of on slaughtered trees. So I can hunt lying down, instead of walking into traffic

Re:

[DogDude]

Keep shoving money into that Amazon maw, you good little drone!

Re:

[DogDude]

He's not the one touting ownership his little over priced corporate shit gadget.

Re:

[Jason Levine]

I'm normally the first one to defend Kindles. I love how easy and ubiquitous they made eBooks. However, I do agree that limiting eBooks to just Amazon sources isn't too bright. This thread has made me come to a decision regarding my first novel (to be published next month - shameless plug). It'll be available in paperback and Kindle versions as per usual book publishing methods (because, like it or not, that's where most people will buy the book from), but I'm also going to look into setting up a DRM-free o

Re:

[unixisc]

Actually, I don't own a kindle from Amazon, if that's what Dogdude thought. I have an iPad and an Android tablet, and read my books on the Kindle app on those. Yeah, I bought the books in question through Amazon, just so that I could read them thru that app. That said, I'm open to any other book reading apps, like a nook app, if one exists. It's not that I wanna enrich Amazon (I don't like Bezos) but I hate having to lug books around or maintain them in a bookcase where they gather dust. On my tablet,

Re:

[xvan]

payhip.com they accept paypal and their cut is lower than amazon's.

Or if you'll keep writing you could open a patreon and add access to your ebooks there.

But most independent authors prefer to sign amazon exclusivity contracts to access amazon unlimited

Re:

[Quirkz]

For self-published Kindle books, you can opt out of DRM in the Amazon store. If DRM is the main concern, that really shouldn't be an issue.

The other issue with Amazon is, some of the perks, like KDP Select, require exclusivity. For self-published authors in particular, who might not have a lot of marketing resources, the ability to let readers get the books for "free" (like Prime or Kindle Unlimited readers, who don't have to pay to read your book, but you still get paid out of a general fund for pages read

Re:

[unixisc]

I actually have nothing against either meat or paper. It's just the convenience of having all the books in a tablet. For anyone who followed that model, the book twist on the Pokemon Go game would not apply to me, since all the books would have to be on the tablet for me to be remotely interested.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, because electricity comes from electricity faeries, just like the plastic and metals that made your kindle come from magic resource faeries. If only we would stop reading books and switch to gadgets, Nature would be saved. Thank Gaia someone thinks of the poor "slaughtered trees".

Re:

[unixisc]

I was being a tad facetious w/ the 'slaughtered trees' comment, but my main reason for going w/ tablets was the convenience of having all my books on that small thing, instead of having to have a bookcase w/ some tens or hundreds of books.

Pay 2 Win

[shadowrat]

Why even bother when someone will just buy the books on kindle and read them all? I can't compete with that.

Re:

[sexconker]

Why bother reading them? Catch and release. Get your internet eScore achievement points.

Hey, kids!

[ThatsNotPudding]

"I've hidden my favorite book 'The Best Candy is In Windowless Vans' deep in the woods. Go find it!!"

Mapping Concepts

[SuperKendall]

Me: *Picks up Harry Potter Book*

Game: *It's Super Effective!*

System

[bugs2squash]

Is this the open source version of the Dewey Decimal System ?

Charming and it may push kids to read more

[Camembert]

Yes, it is a kind of geocaching, and indeed paper books are soooo pre-21st century, but I do find it a rather charming idea, a fun way to exchange reading pleasure of favourite books and I expect tangentially also to push people to read more.
A nice idea, no need for the typical slashcynism...

Books?

[OrangeTide]

What are those?

Re:

[OrangeTide]

I've not seen any such people.

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[Mikkeles]

You must be working extremely hard!

Wow

[scarboni888]

I couldn't possibly think of a more boring game. Way to go, Waffles!

Hey kid

[malditaenvidia]

I've got some real good books in the back of my van, wanna check 'em out?

Sending me to Reuters

[fygment]

Wtf ... Reuters link with no way to back out ?!?