Kobo has just updated its iPad e-reading app to make reading a much more social experience with the Reading Life feature.
The Kobo iPad app now has some deep integration with Facebook, so it’s easy to share what books you’re reading with friends, as well as pull out quotes to share easily. This is an interesting and useful feature and the company promises me that Twitter integration will be coming in the future and that makes a lot of sense for sharing quotes.
The company is also adding multiple gaming elements to the Kobo iPad app. The check-in craze isn’t just restricted to Foursquare and Facebook Places, as you can now check-in to locations in the book. You can also share this location (like, in Wonderland) on the world’s largest social network.
Ask any Xbox user and they’ll tell you how addictive it is to get those achievements and the e-reader is trying to capitalize on that. You’ll get badges and points for achieving things like finishing books and diving into different genres.
You can also get some stats about how often you read, the average length of time you read and how many books you’ve completed. The Kobo iPad app also has some interesting flourishes like giving you a personalized book cover which shows off the books you’ve read.
It’s interesting to integrate social networking with e-reading and we should see some more of this with its upcoming BlackBerry program with BBM integration. I look forward to Reading Life going to other platforms.
Of course, you’ll also be able to use the e-reader program to purchase books, as well as have access to more than 1.8 million free books. You can download the new e-reading program here (iTunes link).
Check out this video for some more information on the Reading Life element.
Kobo Introduces Reading Life from Kobo on Vimeo.
[Via Kobo]