Brings sharing and gamification to its e-books service.
E-books firm Kobo has unveiled an ambitious range of social features for its service, under the banner of Reading Life.
They include letting people track their personal reading history, 'check in' with characters and places inside books, and earn achievements and awards for their reading activity.
Reading Life also allows books, individual passages and awards to be shared with friends on Facebook. The community is launching initially within Kobi's e-reader app for iPad.
"People who are making the switch to eReading and building their lifetime libraries want an innovative social experience to go with it," says CEO Mike Serbinis.
"eReading is going social, local and real-time with Kobo Reading Life, allowing us to create a fun, engaging and meaningful experience for our users."
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Serbinis alluded to Kobo's social plans in a recent interview with ME. They certainly go beyond what's currently available on rival services from Apple, Amazon and Google, in terms of social.
The check-ins and awards features are very Foursquare-esque: Kobo suggests that readers might want to check-in to the Rabbit Hole in Alice in Wonderland, for example, sharing the details on Facebook.
Awards include 'The Papillion' for 'power social sharers', 'The Twain' for people who read daily, and The Witching Hour for people who read late at night.
"This is truly a celebration of reading'not about individual books, but about a person's entire reading life," says Serbinis.
In separate news, Kobo has announced the appointment of Pieter Swinkels as its new director of publisher and industry relations for Europe.
He'll be in charge of Kobo's expansion into Europe, including acquiring new titles and striking publisher deals across the continent.
