Wattpad: The eReader You Might Not Have Heard About

If you're an ereader like myself, you probably have heard of Stanza, eReader, and the Kindle app. You probably have seen individual ebooks that you can download as apps. But you probably have never heard of Wattpad.

Wattpad is an ebook sharing site much like other file sharing sites but just for ebooks? Make sense? Great.

I was first exposed to Wattpad two years ago when I was looking for interesting things to do with my Samsung Trace and my new T-Zone service. Unfortunately, T-Mobile locked down the Trace and drove me to the iPhone. Okay, I wanted the iPhone regardless.

The interesting about Wattpad is that it seems to put a lot of focus on ereading. And not just ereading on a computer but mobile ereading. It worked to some extend on my Trace and it certainly works with most smartphones with a decent browser. Now there is a dedicated app for the iPhone in the iTunes store.

If you're an ereader like myself, you probably have heard of Stanza, eReader, and the Kindle app. You probably have seen individual ebooks that you can download as apps. But you probably have never heard of Wattpad.

Wattpad is an ebook sharing site much like other file sharing sites but just for ebooks? Make sense? Great.

I was first exposed to Wattpad two years ago when I was looking for interesting things to do with my Samsung Trace and my new T-Zone service. Unfortunately, T-Mobile locked down the Trace and drove me to the iPhone. Okay, I wanted the iPhone regardless.

The interesting about Wattpad is that it seems to put a lot of focus on ereading. And not just ereading on a computer but mobile ereading. It worked to some extend on my Trace and it certainly works with most smartphones with a decent browser. Now there is a dedicated app for the iPhone in the iTunes store.

You'll notice that I'm reading a Star Trek book. Look, I don't advocate piracy and I pay for my apps and ebooks. But look! There are tons of commercially available books in Wattpad for the "sampling". Of course, not everything is there. There a lot of holes in terms of having a complete library but Wattpad is simply a ebook sharing platform. No more. No less.

It offers a social feature but seriously, there is nothing social about it. There's a "tell a friend" option that takes you to the e-mail app. There's a "I like this book!" tab. It doesnt' say much. There's no way to write a review for the book. The feedback tab is just that, a feedback.

How about the reading? It has a decent setting to offer the reader to customize the font, font size (a wide latitude), font color, and background color. Under the eReader app, there is more restriction on reader customization. For example, instead of offering font and background colors to choose from, eReader offers themes which is more restrictive.

Stanza offers even more flexibility than Wattpad and eReader and you can tell a lot of thought was put into creating the app.

But at the end of the day, you're reading on a 3" LCD screen whether you're using Wattpad, eReader, Stanza, or a standalone book app. It's no e-ink but there is no fresh delay that we experience with readers like Sony's reader or Kindle.

For Wattpad, its strength lies not in the app but the content shared by its users. Like I said at the beginning, there are some commercial available books that you can add to your library for free. And that alone earns Wattpad a place on any reader's iPhone or iPod Touch.

iTunes Link: Wattpad (it's free too)