Amazon.com to Acquire Goodreads

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by booklover6

goodreads has recommendations? LOL. I use adblock plus so don't see any adds on my main feed page.

I think the recommendations are only on certain pages. You see them when you click on a book to get more detail or something. I've seen them and I have adblock so I know they aren't all blocked. To get into the "recommendation" bucket though, a book has to have over 100 reviews.

I'm not so thrilled with this news. GR was a nice neutral site to talk books. And in the past Amazon has bought sites and let them completely languish.

Of course, I'm really most...distraught because it's one of the few places where my books can be recommended for nook readers, kobo readers and so on. Since so many authors went exclusive those few of us who didn't had kind of an edge/place where there were clans of non-kindle users on GR looking for bargain reads. Selfish of me, I know.

[holymadness]

Goodreads recommendations are based on what must be one of the worst-written algorithms of all time. I swear it just recommends the top books in each category (mystery, biography etc.) that figures prominently on your bookshelf. Amazon's "other people who viewed this page bought these products", on the other hand, is a marvel, probably because it doesn't try to do anything fancy. It just shows you the purchases of people with similar tastes to your own.

Hard to know how to react to this news. The language of the press releases makes it sound like a straight-up acquisition rather than an acqui-hire, but Amazon is known for buying and then extinguishing promising startups that build on the land bordering its turf.

There was a lot said about The Kindle, but nothing about Kindle apps for 3rd party platforms. I'd be pretty happy if Goodreads integration was built into the iOS Kindle app. I hope that this will, alongside other potential improvements, solve the rather annoying problem of being unable to post status updates (which are based on physical page numbers) when reading an electronic book.

[booklover6]

I found the recommendations section. Nice to look at the large covers, but unlikely that I would read anything based on those selections. I do rely heavily on goodreads reviews to make reading selections. It is the primary place I look for reviews. I hope they don't make any changes to the things I like about the site. I am a very heavy goodreads user, in that I mark all books I have read (or tried to). If I lost that data, I would be very upset. I also keep records in google doc spread sheets, but google could theoretically cut those off.

If goodreads changes I will go ballistic!

[tilia]

You can export your GR-shelves, as a csv-file. A few things don't export, like reading progress, but most things do.

[tubemonkey]

You’ll be glad to know that this announcement is great news for our catalog. Amazon metadata will be returning to the site,...

Why did it leave?

[DuskyRose]

Originally Posted by booklover6

goodreads has recommendations? LOL. I use adblock plus so don't see any adds on my main feed page.

At the top of all the pages in GR I remember, there's a link at the top that says "Recommendations". It's not an add, it's a whole page of recommendations based on what you've read, rated, and what's in your TBR pile listed by Genre. You're supposed to be able to tweak it by marking stuff you're not interested in, like Amazons.

I've not been a fan of their recommendations, though. Lots of misses. Way too many. I get better suggestions from browsing the Listopia pages.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Why did it leave?

Because at the time Goodreads didn't agree with the new terms Amazon had for use of their API.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Because at the time Goodreads didn't agree with the new terms Amazon had for use of their API.

Thanks for the info. I don't use Goodreads (or anything similar), so I have no idea what goes on there.

[narflet]

Originally Posted by holymadness

I hope that this will, alongside other potential improvements, solve the rather annoying problem of being unable to post status updates (which are based on physical page numbers) when reading an electronic book.

You do know you can update you status by % read as well as page number? If you've selected an edition listed as a kindle or ebook edition then it'll automatically be set to %. If not, then when you're viewing the full version of the site to update your status just click on the word 'page' in the status update section (i.e. where it says 'I'm on page x of x' and it'll switch to % instead.

As for the amazon/gr news, I honestly don't know whether this is a good or bad thing yet. Will have to wait and see where it goes.

[TCSimpson]

it's a huge move. Goodreads was second in recommending books only to Amazon. Amazon is now past behemoth status.

[cromag]

After this acquisition the best thing that could happen to Goodreads would be nothing at all.

The worst thing that could happen could be very bad.



I haven't been on there very long, but I try to put some thought into my reviews there. On the other hand, I don't review books at Amazon at all. For some reason Amazon thinks they should own my reviews over there.

[volwrath]

Didnt goodreads take amazon off their book list at one point due to amazon stopping them from using reviews or something like that?

[treadlightly]

I wonder if Kobo will still show Goodreads reviews on their site.

[Ravensknight]

I am perfectly fine with this, as long as the pre-existing Amazon reviews for books don't get merged with the current Goodreads database.

Too many stupid people on Amazon rating a book 1star, or 5, because it was shipped really slow, or fast, ie, rating the book instead of the seller.

Other than that, I would love to see some Amazon money poured into GR to get some things updated [re-reads is TOP on my wishlist]

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by volwrath

Didnt goodreads take amazon off their book list at one point due to amazon stopping them from using reviews or something like that?

They were using the metadata APIs in a non-approved manner.
http://www.teleread.com/chris-meadow...-terms-of-use/

Amazon will not allow sites using the API to link to the book on any other on-line retailer except Amazon, but Goodreader provides links to titles on multiple retailers. Also, Amazon will not allow content from its API to be used in mobile sites or applications. Goodreads will switch to paying to license data from Ingram, and will also use information from the Library of Congress and other sources.