What a great idea: a website that aggregates book reviews, along the lines of RottenTomatoes.com.

In fact, iDreamBooks.com seems like such a good idea, I wondered why we haven’t seen something like it sooner.

The Huffington Post (“iDreamBooks Review Site: Rotten Tomatoes For Books?“) helpfully notes in their interview that the nature of movie reviews and book reviews are so very different, that creating a workable, accurate book review aggregation system makes for a tricky project indeed.

Here’s a quick rundown of the How and What –

“iDreamBooks, a site openly inspired by Rotten Tomatoes, has created a system that aims to aggregate and streamline book reviews, giving new releases from the big six publishers (Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin, Random House, and Simon & Schuster) a percentage rating. Like its popular film equivalent, the iDreamBooks team decides whether a certain review is positive or negative using both automated and manual techniques, and compiles the ratings to determine a book’s critical merit.”

Publishing Perspectives (iDreambooks Promises “Rotten Tomatoes-like” Site for Books) contributes their two cents — “Of course, others have announced similar intentions over the years, including Kirkus Reviews, which abandoned the project. So how does it differ from other review aggregators such as Bookmarks Magazine, Books & Media and The Complete Review?”

Don’t get me wrong, The Complete Review is pretty good, but … it’s been around since 1999, and really, really needs some updating.

iDreamBooks is a great idea, and has some work to do (need more books, and maybe a new website name?), but I would love to see this take off and become my go-to spot for book reviews.