Uncoverr recently came into my life in a very…”unique”…way. The idea behind it is pretty neat, so I thought I’d churn out a brief synopsis and some of the interesting background information on it.
In short, Uncoverr is a book site. It targets books related to web professionals, which typically means publications on CSS, JavaScript, LAMP, etc. They have a sponsorship from Sitepoint, who is more than happy to provide them with books to review and increase their sales. They also recently have hooked up with O’Reilly and will hopefully be reviewing their books soon. In addition to the various book reviews, Uncoverr also presents interviews with various web notables, such as Andy Budd and Jonathan Snook.
Objectively
Before I start a review of the site, how it’s put together, and how well it accomplishes its goals, I have to admit something. You see, I was recently approached by the person who established the site, Lachy Groom, to write reviews for books periodically. That being said, I’ve tried to leave my own self-promotion out and take the site for what it is.
As a book review site and affiliate link box (as all book review sites ultimately are), Uncoverr only moderately succeeds. The idea of targeting this genre of books is a good one, but the site is slightly disjointed in stringing together the reviews, user feedback, and push marketing of a book. The most useful navigation element is the sidebar topic list, which instantly links you to a category on, say…JavaScript…and then provides a list of all available books on record with their reviews and links to purchase them on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Powell’s. However, this navigation never includes all topics by default (just the most popular ones), so the entire offering of the site isn’t visible by default unless you click the “see all” link.
The reviews are fairly formulaic, and I say this having written one myself. None of what I have seen posted exists as a shining example of writing prowess or a beacon of light in the dark world of bad grammar, but they’re just book reviews. They serve their purpose of a brief introduction and opinion on the book, and do it succinctly.
Oddly enough, the site features no user capability. No logins, no personal accounts, nothing. This severely hinders the extraneous meta data that is the real core of any site trying to serve the public. Uncoverr was launched in a beta state, so I can only assume that user features are on The List.
Randomly Interesting
It’s worth relating some of the interesting facts about Uncoverr. Namely, information about its benefactor, Lachy Groom. Lachy was recently featured in an interview for the Sitepoint Tribune monthly newsletter, focusing on young entrepreneurs. Lachy is 14. He lives in Australia, and runs multiple web businesses, including PSD to WordPress. Lachy and I have talked via Skype, and while his youth is obvious in some of his opinions and phrasing, he has a keen business acumen. And he’s much more intelligent than most of the lurkers on the web.
Overall, Uncoverr has a lot of potential and work is being done to develop interest around the site and its reviews. It will be interesting to watch as more features are added, its reviewer pool grows, and more supporting publishers are drawn to the site.
