The world of connected devices has inspired a wealth of personal cloud services, allowing age-old industries to become more hopeful about today’s digital age.  The publishing industry in particular has found new life in digital distribution, from e-readers to online retailers like Amazon, which has a penchant for hedging its bets on both sides of this burgeoning marketplace.  What’s still lacking in the personal cloud is a powerful search and filter tool, which demands a high level of customization and ease of use for today’s consumer.

ShelfLuv is taking on a few trends around the personal cloud, mashing up Amazon’s vast book database with instant search results.  A recent update to the site adds social sharing layers, which is ultimately important for extended recommendations based on human relationships.  Currently in private beta (invites for readers below), ShelfLuv is designed around the aesthetics of user interaction, creating a beautiful layout that’s modeled after a physical bookshelf, and is also quite easy to use.

“I also thought about design as part of function,” ShelfLuv creator Pek Pongpaet writes. The books wouldn’t just look nice and pretty but the different types of editions would be visually distinct. Paperbacks would have some sort of indication – like a page curl; hardcovers would have a binder effect, and Kindle editions would have a Kindle behind them.”

Indeed, the design and feel of ShelfLuf is very important, but so is the search function.  Instant search is the next iteration for several search initiatives, especially those coming from Google.  After launching Google Instant, search was taken to another level of usability and accessibility, driving a range of additional features from Google, its competitors and others.  The Google Instant craze has already been applied to other Google search products, from

mobile to images search.  Google Instant has spread to 32 languages and over 69 domains on the desktop and mobile, with recent support added for Instant Pages, further expediting your results.

It’s a concept that ShelfLuv holds dear, making search a core aspect of the site’s design.  Displaying results as the user types, a relationship between queries and user expectations begins to unfold.  Combined with ShelfLuv’s graphic interface, the result is a creative take on filtering one tiny corner of the personal cloud ecosystem.  And that’s an important task to take on.

With thousands of ebooks being published through Amazon Kindle’s self-publishing system, there’s an array of spam that’s hit Amazon’s massive database.  It’s a phenomenon that’s not reserved for ebooks.  The rise of social networks, the real-time web and connected devices has given everyone free reign to create and distribute content.  The result is an overload of content that needs curation and filtering, growing demand around niche search tools like ShelfLuv.  With the personal cloud industry expected to reach $12 billion by 2016, you can see how important search tools will become at the consumer level.
The necessity has driven some inspiring products around the personal cloud, from Primadesk to Greplin.  While the major marketplaces, including Amazon and Facebook, are driving search development around decision-making products and engines.  There’s a great deal of data to consider here, and as projects like ShelfLuv seek out their place amongst these merging trends, open source platforms like GoldenOrb help startups process the information needed to make an impact in this sector.

If you’d like to try out ShelfLuv for yourself, be one of the first to use the invite code “siliconangle” during registration, letting you into ShelfLuv’s private beta.