Rakuten Kobo to sync ereaders with independent reading platform StoryGraph
The upcoming June update will automatically synchronise progress data, including audiobook listening stats, for users of the social reading service.
Rakuten Kobo has announced that its ereaders and reading applications will integrate with the social reading platform StoryGraph starting in June. The partnership is designed to automatically synchronise reading progress between the two services, allowing users to seamlessly track their literary consumption without manual input.
According to Rakuten Kobo chief executive Michael Tamblyn, the integration seeks to remove the barrier between finishing a chapter and logging that achievement. In a statement provided to Engadget, Tamblyn emphasised the importance of community in the reading experience, noting that the update allows Kobo readers to track and share their progress seamlessly.
The technical implementation involves the automatic updating of book progress percentages, adding current titles to StoryGraph’s ‘In Progress’ shelf, and marking completed books as ‘Read’. The synchronisation feature extends beyond text-based content, also supporting audiobooks listened to through Kobo’s platform.
StoryGraph is positioned as an independent alternative to Goodreads, operating outside of Amazon’s ecosystem. While Amazon’s Kindle platform remains the more popular option, it has been characterised by some as restrictive. Both Kobo and StoryGraph have aligned on providing readers with greater control over their reading data and recommendations.
This move follows Kobo’s existing strategy of offering connectivity with third-party services. The company’s ereaders already support an Instapaper integration for saving web articles and provide access to files stored on cloud platforms such as Dropbox and Google Drive. The specific date for the June launch and the technical details regarding synchronisation frequency have not been disclosed.
