Kobo has introduced their Pulse social media feature into their latest update to their Android App. This allows users to comment to each other about the particular books they are reading and see how many other people are reading the same books.
Kobo Pulse has been a huge success for the company and was originally featured in the release of their Vox Tablet last year. It basically gives you a ton of statistics on how many people are reading or have completed the book. You can chat with authors and other users in real time, which creates a book club type vibe. One of the cool features is that you can turn off the spoilers feature, so you will not read any comments by users who are further along in the same book as you are reading.
Another new feature that has crept into the 4.2.22 update was Facebook Timeline sharing. You can share books you are reading or particular passages of the books. One feature I find quite unique is being able to add multiple bookmarks, dubbed “dogears.” This is very useful because if you are reading a book for school or the bookclub, you can make sure you can dogear as many pages as you want.
Finally, there is improved tablet support which makes icons and menus more easy to interact with via the touchscreen. There were also the usual enhancements and bug fixes.
You can download the latest version of Kobo for Android from our app store HERE.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
