Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
I'm of the opinion that Amazon bought Goodreads primarily to keep its enemies from buying it. It was in play and somebody was going to buy it; better them than an enemy. Having achieved that, they don't need to do much else. Like a gambler on a streak, their best bet may be to just let it ride and see how far it goes...
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Well, OK, it is possible that that's all there is to it. Amazon.com had a few hundred mil, saw a target, no real need but could be useful for a competitor, bought it. Now all Goodreads needs to do (continue doing) is to make money for Amazon while not impeding its main business. Kinda like Zappos. But the things is, it is not at all like Zappos. It is not a store, and
as a business model it may not be commercially viable at all. For most its prior life Goodreads needed financing and a major volunteer workforce to help it float. And its very purpose was not to broaden Amazon's market, but to serve its community by providing information and comparison.
I think Goodreads is more like Stanza or Mobipocket. Not really a business, more like a service, which is great only while it's free. And once you are paying for it, it is no longer so great. Can be a money pit if you let it be.
Let's give it a year or so, and see where Goodreads is then. I think it will either be integrated into Amazon completely and thus dismantled, or it will be left "alone" (like IMDB) as a feeder service for book sales (only to Amazon), or possibly totally dismantled and done. Its user-generated content database will most probably be pillaged by Amazon, at which point Goodreads will not continue standing on its own as an online destination. Or it may be remade into an ebook store (integrated with Kindle store into this new entity, possibly selling content in both Kindle and EPUB formats). I don't believe in the charitable nature of any business, especially Amazon. There.
Imagine this happening to Wikipedia. Being sold to Britannica, or Random Penguin, or Amazon, or Google... And then not exactly dismantled, but forced to make money, as that's all any business is interested in after all. If not today, tomorrow or the day after. I've seen it happen many times, and I have no reason to believe this time is different.
Sooner or later it
is going to happen to Wikipedia.