First, to begin, let’s remind the reader that Leatherbound.me is not what it sounds like. The site is safe for work and completely tame. Trust me. I found out the hard way.
That said, Leatherbound.me is actually a book comparator site. You type in the name of a book or an author (any keyword, really) and you get a list of titles back. Click on one of the titles and you see that book’s availability in the Kindle Store, the Nook Marketplace, and the iBook Souk. Why is this important? Because one of the main sticking points for many people when it comes to dedicating themselves to one online bookstore is the availability of popular titles. For example, the iBook store has barely any titles at all while Amazon and B&N selectively miss a few popular titles. Knowing where these titles are at a glace is very valuable in certain, very specific situations.
Best of all, a team of programmers built this classy project in a mere 48 hours using Ruby on Rails. Part of a project called the Rails Rumble, the existence of a project like Leatherbound.me basically proves that you can make cool software in a few days. Other apps in the contest include Scrappler, a system for scraping pages for information, and Pint.me, an app that allows you to buy people beer, both worthy endeavors.
Anyway, give it a try. It’s obviously a proof-of-concept and the actual utility is fairly limited but it will allow you to make sane decisions when it comes to ebook stores. It also looks really nice.