Amazon's Goodreads ditching a user feature

[Quoth]

Owned books
As part of streamlining our reviews creation page on desktop, we no longer support the option to add details about owned books such as condition and purchase date. If you’d like to keep any details about owned books you’ve entered, please request your Goodreads data by Sept. 1st.

Links to Amazon are more prominent than before Amazon bought it.

It was a shame Amazon bought IMDB and Goodreads.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Links to Amazon are more prominent than before Amazon bought it.

It was a shame Amazon bought IMDB and Goodreads.

Yes. Goodreads became less useful to me after the acquisition; the homepage showed mostly my own books and promotional links, neither of which is of interest, to the detriment of what my friends are reading, which is what I’d like to see. Yes, I could scroll down, but I usually don’t bother, just log my books and go. I haven’t looked at the new horror yet.

A constant irritant isn’t even so much that Goodreads is promoting books because I realize that’s the game with a free site, but that the promotional books are so poorly targeted. Goodreads has my ratings on close to 3,000 books; can’t they come up with books of more interest to me than cowboy and Amish romances? Of course they could, but the type of books I like aren’t paying them for promotion. Frankly, it’s a con on the authors who I suspect think they’re paying for a likely audience, not just any warm body.

[rantanplan]

To this day, essentially every web-company should have my profiles one way or another as they all use the same profiles from facebook, google and amazon but still are not able to promote items of interest to me. This is not the commercialized dystopian future that was promised to me.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by rantanplan

This is not the commercialized dystopian future that was promised to me.

It makes more sense when you realize that the advertisers are the actual customers and you are just the product being sold.

[rantanplan]

Originally Posted by jhowell

It makes more sense when you realize that the advertisers are the actual customers and you are just the product being sold.

That is true.

[maddz]

If you're looking for a free alternative to Goodreads, you could try LibraryThing. I got an unlimited membership years ago when free personal accounts were limited to 200 items, err books, but now all personal memberships are free and unlimited. Best $25 I ever spent (and I live in the UK).

The social aspects aren't as prominent, especially things like multiple reading dates. It may be a bit of a pain to import your titles - there is a Goodreads import, but I con't say how good it is. Marketing is unobtrusive - it is primarily a book cataloguing site, although there are active forums.

Disclaimer: I've been a member for over 10 years, and have over 14,000 titles catalogued. Most were added via the standard add books page one at a time, some were manually added, some used a TamperMonkey script to clone an existing book record (mine or another member's).

It is part-owned by Amazon but not majority-owned. The majority owner is active on the forums, especially when new features are being rolled out or part of the site has been upgraded to the new 'look'.

[DiapDealer]

I'm not looking for a book cataloguing site, myself, so these changes don't really bother me. I never did put any of my physical books in Goodreads, and "condition" wouldn't be something I was interested in even if I did. I just need a place that lets me search for some books, maintain a bit of a virtual TBR, and check out what other people I know are reading. Goodreads still works the same way for me that it always did. *shrug*

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by issybird

A constant irritant isn’t even so much that Goodreads is promoting books because I realize that’s the game with a free site, but that the promotional books are so poorly targeted. Goodreads has my ratings on close to 3,000 books; can’t they come up with books of more interest to me than cowboy and Amish romances? Of course they could, but the type of books I like aren’t paying them for promotion.

This is part of the reason why I like The Storygraph. Being wholly independently-owned, it has no profit motive in the recommendations that it makes. The user preference survey that one fills in before receiving any recommendations is remarkably effective - I'd guesstimate not less than 50 of the books I've read since joining in 2020 were books it recommended - and Goodreads import is easy. Since all its core functionality is free, there's nothing to lose from trying it out, imo.
And if all that sounds like a paid shill, I should add that I pay them, not the other way round

[spacepope]

The heck?

Makes me glad I switched to Storygraph this year.
I will admit that Goodreads is a decent place for book reviews from the masses. But, as a means of recommending books, tracking reading, etc, Storygraph is better.

[haertig]

The only things I use Goodreads for is (1) to check if a book I stumbled upon is part of a series, and what other books are in that series. And (2), if I like a book or series, I use it to check out what other books/series that author has done. There are a ton of other places besides Goodreads to get this information. Goodreads generally does it as well as, but not better than, other places I have found that present this same information. What I would really like is a place that would reliably tell me when an author I have flagged releases a new book, or future notice of when they plan to release it. I get some of these notifications, sporadically, from Amazon for authors that I watch. But that does not seem to be reliable at all. I don't know if I might have done something incorrectly when I tried to set this up or if Amazon is just, well, sporadic. But I don't get notifications reliably, whatever the cause.

[rantanplan]

I can only agree with TheStorygraph being a great alternative. Also, for those whom this is relevant to, it's owned the a woman PoC who thought that it's important to have an independent platform for book suggestions with community features so at least for the foreseeable future it's unliketly that she buys out.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by jhowell

It makes more sense when you realize that the advertisers are the actual customers and you are just the product being sold.

And they are being cheated, because If I own the PB version, I am not very likely to buy the HB. (I see this frequently in the Movie section: I bought the Bluray and then see ads for the DVD. )
<rant>
Or
I bought a repair part and the ad for the alternate shows up the next day.
Are they dumb? Consumable items still take time to consume... at least WAIT that time to remind .

OTOH Non-consumables (purchased or wish listed) should disable ads for the same item and lean to how it might share usage type with other items. I buy a 7" saw blade implies I HAVE a 7" saw (motor), Show other accessories, not a Saw. (They do a bit of this on the Item page: Users also bought...)
</rant>

[CathyA]

Originally Posted by haertig

The only things I use Goodreads for is (1) to check if a book I stumbled upon is part of a series, and what other books are in that series. And (2), if I like a book or series, I use it to check out what other books/series that author has done. There are a ton of other places besides Goodreads to get this information. Goodreads generally does it as well as, but not better than, other places I have found that present this same information. What I would really like is a place that would reliably tell me when an author I have flagged releases a new book, or future notice of when they plan to release it. I get some of these notifications, sporadically, from Amazon for authors that I watch. But that does not seem to be reliable at all. I don't know if I might have done something incorrectly when I tried to set this up or if Amazon is just, well, sporadic. But I don't get notifications reliably, whatever the cause.

I like FantasticFiction.com for this. I follow all the authors whose series I read and FF emails me whenever a new book is announced and again when it's released. They do have a wish list feature, but I keep my own Google sheets file for upcoming releases.

FictionDB.com has some similar features, but I have found their notifications to be less reliable. I think they group them and send them once a month, but I like to get them as the info becomes available.

[tomsem]

I have little use for Recommendations. They are all a waste of time. None of these changes (to the extent that it's clear what they are) are of any importance to me. I use Goodreads to track what I've read, look at reviews, and to see what my friends and people I follow are reading. I don't notice the advertisements, through years of training to ignore them.

I wish they would take the time to improve the mobile apps: support Dark Mode, let me compare books with other people. But they won't.

[JSWolf]

How does the condition of an eBook matter? It doesn't.