
Amazon Acquires Social Reading Site Goodreads - ssclafani
http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/28/amazon-acquires-social-reading-site-goodreads/
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austenallred
This acquisition makes so, so much sense. I have a goodreads account, but I
never update it, mostly because it's too much time. If it were well-connected
(or synced?) with my Kindle, I would use it literally weekly.

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radicaldreamer
My biggest complaint about Good Reads is it's confusing user interface. I
would really use it a lot more if it was a little less clunky to use.

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psweber
Have you found a good alternative? I'm interested in a service like this, but
I haven't been able to find anything better.

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radicaldreamer
No, it really is the best service out there currently, mostly because it has
the most number of people on it. I think it would be amazing if Amazon can
integrate the Kindle with it and improve on some of the annoyances.

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DanBC
> I think it would be amazing if Amazon can integrate the Kindle with it and
> improve on some of the annoyances.

Amazon have a _terrible_ reputation when it comes to user interfaces.

There are some amazing things about Amazon. I use Amazon often. But the
website sucks; search is pretty much broken (it's like web search used to be);
Kindle ebooks sometimes have laughably terrible typography.

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alanh
Disagree! While eBook typography is a gimme — can’t disagree there —
Amazon.com is one of the most usable sites out there. Sure, Krug’s book _Don’t
Make Me Think_ is a bit old, but there’s a reason he kept using Amazon as an
example of whom to copy. They have good UI design because they had to in order
to win online commerce. Flows like reporting problems with orders are very
well thought out and guide you to the proper next action, whether you are
starting from the the page of the product you ordered or your account history,
for example.

Similarly, I don’t know anyone who is very confused by Amazon property IMDB.

Amazon.com search may not be as good as Google’s, but it isn’t the worst thing
ever. I will agree they still need to work on relatively basic things like
spelling correction. But remember A9? Amazon have certainly invested in
search. And certainly their book search is worlds better than GoodReads’ is!
Basic things like "hitch-hiker's" vs "hitchhickers", IIRC, have tripped up
GoodReads search, but don’t make as much a difference on Amazon.

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Narretz
Hopefully they will invest in development of the actual site. Its ui is
inconsistent, sometimes confusing, and at times very slow. While they support
many many use cases, the workflow for a simple thing like "add a book I am
reading and the start date" is needlessly convulted. I also don't like how
they prioritize the English version in the results even if you search for
another / the original language. Especially in the latter case, the original
should be highlighted. And you can only mark the edition your read, not the
language explicitly.

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LeeHunter
All that's true, but it's actually one of the reasons I love the site. It's
got a funky, homemade feel that I find quite charming. Part of the reason that
I'm comfortable contributing my reading information to the site (~500 books so
far) is that I don't feel like it's being sucked into a corporate borg. This
past year I've been trying to get away from Amazon by replacing the Kindle app
on my phone with Moonreader, so I'm really sad to see Goodreads get
assimilated.

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caseydurfee
If funky and homemade is your thing, there's always librarything (which also
has a real business model, so not likely to get swallowed up any time soon.)

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movingahead
Apparently, Amazon holds a 40% stake in Abebooks which owns LibraryThing. From
Pandodaily, "Amazon already owns Shelfari as well as Abebooks, which bought a
40-percent stake in LibraryThing in 2006, so it owns all or part of three of
the top social-reading sites."

[http://pandodaily.com/2013/03/28/amazon-bought-goodreads-
but...](http://pandodaily.com/2013/03/28/amazon-bought-goodreads-but-it-wont-
break-it/)

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myle
A mail from a year ago (29/1/2012).

We want to let you know about a change on our site that is impacting some of
the books on your shelves. It's important that you read this and take action
by Monday, January 30.

For years, we've used Amazon's data for information such as the book title,
author, and publication date. Unfortunately, the terms required by Amazon have
now become so restrictive that we decided it makes better sense to work with
other data sources. However, the deadline to make the transition is Amazon's,
and they have told us that we must stop using their data by January 30. We
have to meet this deadline.

We've been adding data from other sources and now know which books still need
help. You are receiving this email because we need new sources for 2 of the
books on your shelves.

First, please be assured that none of your reviews or ratings are in danger.
Not a single review, comment, shelving, or rating will be lost in this
transition. We have a system in place to preserve your reviews and comments
for any books at risk until we can find new sources. That's the most important
thing—your data is 100 percent safe.

What can you do? The good news is you can rescue your books. Saving a book is
easy. Just click the "Rescue Me!" button next to each book edition that needs
help, and fill in the information on the following page. A few keystrokes can
help preserve these books for millions of future readers.

Rescue your books!

It takes only a few clicks, and you will be doing your part to make sure these
books remain available for other readers like you. We appreciate the passion
you bring to Goodreads, and we apologize for the short notice. If we could
have prevented this inconvenience in any way, we would have done it.
Ultimately, this change will be better for the members of Goodreads and long-
term success of the site.

If you don't want to rescue your books, you can also export your books to a
spreadsheet so you have a record of them.

All the best, Otis & Elizabeth Goodreads Founders

~~~
ivankirigin
It's weird, playing hardball with your platform for the purpose of forcing an
acquisition. Do the BD & corp dev folks here think they are going to retain
the founders for long, after this kind of behavior?

Then again, Tony Hsieh is still at Zappos, right?

~~~
tomkarlo
It seems kind of paranoid to suggest that Amazon would manipulate an API
that's so central to their business for the purpose of forcing an minor
acquisition. Not to mention it would probably be cheaper to just buy the
target for a few million dollars.

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ivankirigin
They cut off data access, right? That sounds exactly what has happened
multiple times with other companies to drive an acquisition. I bring up Zappos
because Amazon forced a sale there. All they needed to do was threaten a
"diapers.com" where they forced an acquisition in that case by (unsustainably)
undercutting prices. Companies manipulate their platforms constantly to
achieve their business goals.

Also, only the paranoid survive.

~~~
tomkarlo
Goodreads is not Zappos. They are at least an order of magnitude apart in
size, if not two, and Amazon is larger now too.

Making large strategic plays makes sense when you're talking about a purchase
that is a large percentage of your own company's market value. It does not
make sense for a tiny buy. This would be like refinancing your mortgage to buy
a Big Mac.

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travisp
I agree that it makes a ton of sense for both companies, but how they
integrate it is going to be very important. My wife and I don't use a number
of Kindle features (including the current built in review feature) in part
because we share our Amazon account. But, I am a big GoodReads user.

If Goodreads just gets attached on a per device basis (like Twitter), then
it's no problem, but if it gets integrated with the Amazon account itself (as
some people seem to be suggesting) then I don't see how we (and many others
like us) could use it.

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k-mcgrady
Is there a reason you both use the same Amazon account? I'm interested because
we see this problem crop up every now and then. Apple ID's are another place
it's been problematic. With Apple I can understand sharing the ID so you can
listen to each others music collection but what are the benefits of sharing an
Amazon account? Prime?

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malcolmmcc
I would assume the main reason is to share Kindle books.

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k-mcgrady
Good point, should have thought of that. Possibly music and other media too. I
always forget Amazon sells so much digital content.

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gcheong
The lack of integration with my kindle is a large part of why I don't use
Goodreads as much as I might otherwise but I'm kind of disappointed that it
will take a buyout to get that integration rather than Amazon creating an api
that would allow third-parties to integrate their services with the device
directly.

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nichodges
It's a shame that Amazon didn't invest in creating a Kindle API rather than
buying an existing service. I built <http://kindred.it> to load up my
highlights via xpath because I was so frustrated with the kindle.amazon.com UI
- it seems they could benefit much more from creating an API and letting great
services be built rather than acquiring what will likely be Shelfari mkII.

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sgpl
Not surprised. Goodreads is for books what IMDB is for movies (which Amazon
also owns). It'll nicely complement Amazon as a recommendation engine to push
buyers to amazon to purchase books (which it already does). I use goodreads to
track books that I want to read at some later point; and have used it to
discover new books.

Atleast I'm glad it was Amazon vs "Any Other Big Corp" because I believe that
Amazon will keep the service alive vs shutting it down or trying to absorb it
somehow.

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evanjacobs
This isn't a good analogy. IMDb was and is literally the best source of movie
data anywhere. It is more useful to think of them as Wikipedia for movies
since the community maintains the info and includes data that isn't available
anywhere else.

Goodreads is the largest community of book readers in the world and so they
would be able to provide their tools for book groups and conversations about
books that Amazon is sorely lacking.

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205guy
That isn't a good analysis. I have found wikipedia itself to be the best
source of movie data. For all titles I've searched (and not always mainstream
or US releases), wikipedia has a better summary, a better plot description,
more release info, and a better page layout. Perhaps it doesn't list all the
production details such as who was the key grip, but you can easily jump to
all the major cast and producer/director wiki pages. It just seems more
complete and easier to read. Imdb now seems too specialized, like it's for the
movie industry itself.

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nfg
That might be precisely what the OP meant by 'best'. To me the distinction
they make seems important and not inconsistent with what you've said.

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runn1ng
Book Depository getting more popular than Amozon? boom, they buy them.

GoodReads having better Google positions for books than Amazon? boom, they buy
them.

I am personally a little afraid of this monopolistic behaviour. But hey,
capitalism, I guess...

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salvadors
A lot depends on what they do with the companies they acquire.

Lots of people were afraid of what would happen to BookDepository post-sale,
but pretty much none of that has happened. (I'm particularly grateful that
free worldwide shipping didn't disappear!)

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runn1ng
Their definition of "free" is fun though.

Try some proxies and simulate visiting the site from different places ....
yes, their prices vary based on from where you visit it, so they add the
shipping to the basic prices.

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salvadors
Prices sometimes also change depending on which site you're visiting.
Generally these are just a few pennies, but I've seen differences of more than
two or three pounds between the .com and .co.uk prices for the same book, even
though theoretically they should be exactly the same.

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jamesshamenski
I think this is Amazon's third purchase of a social book community.

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drucken
Maybe Amazon can turn Goodreads into an actual recommendation site and use the
full capabilities of its databases and search facilities.

To this day, since I first joined near its founding, I am astonished that
there is still no way to search for the highest rated and voted books within a
genre.

Instead, one is left to rely on heavily skewed "Lists" or "popular" books or
their (annual) Award system.

In short, at this time, Goodreads for books is far less useful than say, IMDB
is for movies. I actually find Goodreads _less_ useful than Amazon itself for
recommendations!

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dsyph3r
I was never a big reader of books before I joined Goodreads. I spent a lot of
time reading tech books (mostly programming related) but never fictional
books. Since joining Goodreads and enjoying the social aspect Ive read so many
more books. I really hope Amazon doesn't destroy this service

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austinstorm
Nobody's talking about Shelfari, which hasn't changed since 2008 when Amazon
acquired it. It got frozen in time.

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LoganCale
Not exactly true, I use it often and small features are being added to it
semi-regularly.

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traeblain
So....Shelfari is going to die now? I guess the team there with Shelfari
couldn't cut it with making a good Book data site.

~~~
Narretz
I never knew this one! Looks simpler than Goodreads, I like it. But it has the
same bias towards the English edition of a book, not even highlighting the
original even if I searched for it. I wonder what's gonna happen to it.

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pathikrit
I used to be one of the engineers on shelfari. The team was kept mostly the
same 4-5 guys from before acquisition and we worked on incremental stuff -
integrating with Amazon sign-on, better meta data, lot's of minor UI things
like better threads, series info etc etc.

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jefftchan
Besides Apple, I see Readmill [1] as another serious competitor. It provides
the social integration on top of an ebook reader. However it's lacking in its
catalog selection.

[1] <http://readmill.com>

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Groxx
Makes a huge amount of sense for Amazon, but honestly I can only see this as a
bad thing for Goodreads. Amazon has huge issues with reviews of the fulfilling
company getting blended in with reviews of the actual product, and there's
another layer added with media - quality of the content, completely separate
from the build (pages falling out, horrible OCR, etc).

Goodreads has reviews of _content_ quality. Amazon will muddy that immensely
with reviews of every other part of a sale if they do any integration into
Amazon (unless they plan an overhaul of their reviewing architecture - I'd
love it, but I doubt it).

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salvadors
I'm hopeful that if they integrate the reviews at all (and I'm not sure they
will — I suspect there's a different plan here), it'll be solely in the
Goodreads→Amazon direction.

Amazon have a fairly good history of letting the companies they acquire stay
fairly autonomous and independent.

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magicmarkker
If I can link my amazon account and have it load all of my books into
goodreads that's great. Otherwise, I still won't use goodreads because I have
too many books to enter manually and I'm too lazy.

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arjn
How is this a good thing for readers and other book retailers ? Will we still
be able see links to buy books from a number of different retailers such as
B&N or Indigo ? I doubt it.

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nzeeshan
Goodreads and Amazon were two places I used to go to check out book reviews.
Now I can get best of both in one place. Makes a lot of sense for Amazon to
buy them.

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salvadors
Have they said that they're going to merge those?

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jacobheric
I'm a sometimes Goodreads user. I'd use it more if it weren't maddeningly
slow.

One thing that I had noticed about Goodreads was that Amazon was always at the
bottom of the online store referral list. Because of that, I took them to be
Amazon hostile or adverse (perhaps reading too much into that). But, I went to
the site today and now Amazon is at the top of the online store referral list.

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patcon
I'm not looking forward to this. The best community was just bought by the
company that killed text-to-speech in their product in favour of making
hundred of millions on audiobooks. Welcome to your new garden prison, online
book community. Enjoy the complimentary bookmarks.

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djhworld
Personally I think Amazon have just purchased this site for the data.

Goodreads has a fairly reasonable recommendations engine based on the book
collections people have inputted into the site, so I'd imagine that
information might be very interesting for Amazon to capitalise on.

~~~
tomkarlo
I'm guessing Goodread's data set on book collections is maybe 1/1000th as
large as Amazon's. They're more likely buying them for the community of heavy
readers and the team.

~~~
salvadors
The collections on Goodreads are generally more comprehensive than those on
Amazon. I've added over 750 books on Goodreads, but fewer than 10% of those
were purchased through Amazon.

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tomkarlo
You're talking about the actual user-generated lists. Amazon also has the data
on what all of their users have actually bought over time. (Hundreds of
millions vs Goodreads millions.) That's what they use to create purchase
recommendations, because it's higher value data than manual user-generated
collections.

~~~
salvadors
Yes — Amazon certainly has significantly more data, but Goodreads' data is
deeper, because it's not restricted to items bought from Amazon. Goodreads has
a much better picture of what I read than Amazon could ever get simply from my
purchase history (even if they cross-match with bookdepository). Being able to
mine the Goodreads data too should enable them to make even higher value
recommendations. (Note: I'm not claiming this is why Amazon bought them!)

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diadara
I hope they don't murder the site.

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calvin
Did Woot get murdered? No.

Did Zappos get murdered? No.

Did Quidsi get murdered? No.

Did Shelfari get murdered? No.

(Note: I'm biased.)

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officemonkey
Woot got a little murdered. It ain't like it used to be.

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akl
How so?

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breck
Awesome. I love Goodreads. I hope this helps them make it better.

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r00fus
What happened to other social reading sites like Shelfari that got acquired by
Amazon?

Amazon has a strong motive to prevent any alternate review service from
gaining traction as those Amazon reviews drive sales.

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oblique63
I wonder if this will have an effect on Google's current scraping of goodreads
reviews to fluff-up their books section on the Play store...

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xbryanx
Now if Amazon will just buy LibraryThing and Discogs I can beam my obsessive
library catalog consciousness up into the Amazon mothership.

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jonbischke
They are 40% of the way there with LibraryThing:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibraryThing>

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tocomment
Probably a dumb question ... But how does this give superior recomendations to
amazons normal recomendations?

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nollidge
It doesn't. The selling points are A) the social component (what are my
friends reading?) and B) keeping track of books I want to read.

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chris_mahan
time for me to close my goodreads account I guess...

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ajju
About time.

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fakeer
First Shelfari which Amazon bought 3 years ago and now Goodreads.

In three years there's been no updates to Shelfari and that was my biggest
peeve against Goodreads - lack of update) and absence of even a half decent
mobile app(I use Android).

So, looking at Shelfari's fate one can say that Amazon has bought it for
anything but continuing the development and doing sth about it's questionable
interface.

Hope LibraryThing stays afloat. Would like to move my data there. Just in
case.

