Blurb GroupBook Lets Facebook Users Create Books Together

Blurb, the creative book publishing service, has launched Blurb GroupBook, an application for Facebook that lets users make real books collectively. Blurb introduced community bookmaking last year to empower socially connected groups of consumers and professionals to create Blurb books together. GroupBook is the next step in the evolution of this concept. The Facebook community can now easily make Blurb books that capture and reinforce their shared experiences and passions, and help bridge their online and offline communities. With over 68MM active users, Facebook is the fifth most trafficked Web site in the world, and the number one photo sharing application on the Web.

As people share content in online communities like Facebook and Flickr, there is a growing need to take this content and create something tangible. Some content should live online, but other content is meant for people to keep, and its value is as much about "later" as it is about now. Books that memorialize shared experiences create a different impact and meaning than the same content viewed online.

Blurb, the creative book publishing service, today launched Blurb GroupBook, an application for Facebook that lets users make real books collectively. Blurb introduced community bookmaking last year to empower socially connected groups of consumers and professionals to create Blurb books together. GroupBook is the next step in the evolution of this concept. The Facebook community can now easily make Blurb books that capture and reinforce their shared experiences and passions, and help bridge their online and offline communities. With over 68MM active users, Facebook is the fifth most trafficked Web site in the world, and the number one photo sharing application on the Web.

As people share content in online communities like Facebook and Flickr, there is a growing need to take this content and create something tangible. Some content should live online, but other content is meant for people to keep, and its value is as much about "later" as it is about now. Books that memorialize shared experiences create a different impact and meaning than the same content viewed online.

Here's how Blurb GroupBook works:

-- Install Blurb GroupBook from the Facebook Applications Directory (http://apps.facebook.com/blurbgb).

-- Initiate a GroupBook project. (Whoever starts the project becomes the book's producer).

-- Use the Facebook platform to invite friends to contribute photos to the project. Once friends accept the invitation, they can easily upload photos, view other contributed photos, and make comments. (Content is stored as a free, hosted, private book project on Blurb's Web site).

-- Review the photos and choose which ones to include in the book.

-- When ready, slurp selected photos into Blurb BookSmart(TM) and get to work creating a book.

When users finish a Blurb GroupBook, they can announce it to their Facebook friends in all the normal ways -- via their newsfeed, on the wall, by posting to their profile, etc. Blurb also provides book badges that link a Facebook profile to a Blurb book in the company's online bookstore.

Website: http://www.blurb.com/