Pearson Publishing Goes Social

The success of Facebook has brought on a whole new concept to social networking and its ability to generate mass amounts of revenue. Pearson publishing has taken this one step further and have decided to revamp their Spinebreakers website to encourage reading among teens, and at the same time capitalize on the success of social media. Pearson, owner of both Penguin Books and Financial Times, expects this overhaul to be finished by the end of the year and is said to work somewhat like Facebook; where teens can tag their favorite books and share it with their friends.

Anna Rafferty, the digital managing director for Penguin in the UK, said, "We want to develop peer-to-peer capabilities and have plans for a full social network. I would love to have teenagers tagging their favourite books and sharing it with their friends."

After being turned down by the heads of content of social media in UK, Pearson’s decided to take matters into their own hands. Some critics believed that the idea was a born failure, because in their minds, teenagers no longer like to read. Pearson’s knows better. The website allows kids between the ages of 13 to 18 to blog, be their own critics, and chat with friends. Spinebreakers is already an established website with over 90,000 unique visits a year and Pearson’s believes this overhaul will bring in many more teenagers and peak their interests in reading.