App for Bibliophiles

Connect and exchange books with likeminded readers with the help of the app Barter.li

HYDERABAD: Prasun Jain, a graduate from IIT Delhi had his heart set on starting his own company. His wife was pursuing her higher education in the USA, and the couple were constantly on their phones, communicating through smartphone applications like Facetime, Skype and WhatsApp.

When not at work, Prasun read a lot and had a collection of close to 200 books, most of which he was done reading. While he had no heart to dispose of the collection, he pondered the possibility of swapping them with other book lovers. This is when he stumbled upon the idea of creating an app that would enable people to meet up and exchange books.

Barter.li is a community-based, open source, non-profit app that aims at creating a library on everybody’s smartphone.

Registering on the app will enable the user to connect with people nearby who have books to exchange. While selling books would seem cumbersome, meeting fellow bibliophiles and discussing various books and authors is nothing but fun, reckons Prasun.

Speaking about the start-up, he says, “The idea was to combine my love for books with my faith in technology. In old school bookstores, the proprietor would have read most of the books in his collection and would be able to talk to you for hours about each story and author. With this app, I wish to create a similar effect.

Everyone can spread the word about the books that they love.”  Monthly meetings are held at various cafes and libraries in the city to bring people together to meet up, chat and exchange books.

Having started it all by himself, Prasun now has six other people working with him on the application. Last November, he had put up barter.li for crowdfunding on Indiegogo. While the app failed to get more than seven per cent of his target amount of $20,000, Prasun decided to spend from his own pocket to make it available on the Android platform. Currently, he is also working on a profit-based app that would help local service providers reach out to customers.

Unlike most other apps, barter.li is not a mobile first project, Prasun says. “I have no plans of expanding this into a website, as it would no longer be an effective model then. It’s better if users can contact those with books of their choice immediately, and that is easier done through their smartphones.”

Twenty-nine-year-old Prasun believes that technology is gradually winning over book lovers. “Three out of five books that I read today are on my Kindle. It’s just an easier option. However, with barter.li, I wish to use the same technology to save books that would otherwise be thrown away or sold,” he says.

Details: google play store - li.barter

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The New Indian Express
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