Straight from the horse's mouth, via Paid Content:
http://paidcontent.org/2013/03/28/fi...-of-goodreads/
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What does the acquisition mean for Goodreads’ reputation as a neutral hub for readers, authors and publishers?
Otis Chandler [OC]: “One of the extremely important things to us is for readers to share what they’re reading, no matter how they’re reading. We have no plans to change that. We want Goodreads to be a place for readers of all types to share their favorite books. You can expect to see customizations and better integrations for people who do use Kindle. For everyone else, Goodreads will remain largely as it is.”
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Quote:
Will Goodreads remain a standalone site, and is its entire team staying on? Is the site getting a redesign?
Grandinetti says Goodreads will be an independent subsidiary of Amazon, like Zappos or IMDB. The site will remain based in San Francisco. Chandler remains CEO, reporting to Grandinetti. Chandler said that Goodreads’ entire team is staying on (and that the company is hiring).
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Will Amazon have access to all of the Goodreads users’ data?
OC: “Goodreads is or will be a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon, so on one level, yes. Are things going to happen in the background without customers understanding it? I think the answer to that is no….We’ll make it very easy for someone to say, ‘Yeah, I’d love it if you could import all of my Amazon or Kindle purchases into my Goodreads shelf.’ We’ll make it very easy for people to do, but they’ll be aware of what’s happening.”
Users already have the ability to export their data from Goodreads, and they’ll continue to be able to do so.
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Will Goodreads now include a retail component — for instance, selling print or Kindle books from its site?
RG: “The design they have works incredibly well for users. You see that in the number of users who join that service.”
OC: “I think, short-term, the thing we’re most excited about is actually bringing the book into Goodreads and enabling people to just start reading right there from the Kindle Cloud Reader. We’ve never had a good book preview feature.”
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Quote:
Will Goodreads retain its public API? Does Kobo get to keep its Goodreads review feed?
OC: “Yes [on the API],” and “we’re not going to shut [the Kobo feed] off.”
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So, they'll remain a separate operation, like ZAPPOS, they won't give Amazon your data if you don't ask them to or without telling you, and they will be using Amazon's cloud reader to provide book previews on their website. And now they have the resources to formally expand internationally and to other languages.
The Kindle integration looks to be on the Kindle side, not on the website itself.
More details at the source, above.
Those inclined to angst will continue to angst but it doesn't sound like they intend to meddle or disrupt what Goodreads does. You don't spend $150M on something just to destroy it.