Amazon.com to Acquire Goodreads

[holymadness]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Fear of their success.
Amazon knows exactly what they're doing and there is growing evidence that most of their competitors (except maybe Apple) don't.
The old ways are dying and those with vested interests are mightily afeared.

Look around you. The people in this thread do not represent corporate interests. These are the concerns of the everyman.

Not everything in life is a manifestation of the dialectical struggle.

[paola]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Goodreads members and especially their librarians voluntarily spent many hours maintaining the site. Entering books, metadata, covers and series info. Plus all the reviews and ratings. Editing, editing, organizing and organizing. We're talking hundreds of hours each year all in sharing to make GR a success ... 16 million members and $150 million is evidence.

However, now that Amazon will soon own them there is little incentive for us to continue to do so. Will people volunteer their time to help Amazon earn more money? Some may feel a multi-billion dollar corporation can hire their own people to maintain their site. Doesn't feel like charity any more.

precisely my feeling - not sure whether I'll end up ditching Goodreads, but surely I am not going to work for amazon for free!

[Fiat_Lux]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

I would feel the same way if the effort was just for my own benefit, but I saw the work involved as a contribution to the community, and I would benefit when others put in the effort too.

When I went in to add the books in my hard copy library, I couldn't. A quarter of my library has no ISBN, and around a third have ISBNs that are not on GoodReads, but whose titles appear to be listed there.

I'd be willing to review books, but when the ISBN is different,the content is different. Whether or not that difference will make a difference to the person who reads my review is unknown. In reviews I've written elsewhere, it has made a difference.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by Fiat_Lux

When I went in to add the books in my hard copy library, I couldn't. A quarter of my library has no ISBN, and around a third have ISBNs that are not on GoodReads, but whose titles appear to be listed there.

I'd be willing to review books, but when the ISBN is different,the content is different. Whether or not that difference will make a difference to the person who reads my review is unknown. In reviews I've written elsewhere, it has made a difference.

That's hard because the folks that sell ISBNs sell one for each format: ePUB, Mobi, print, etc.

For reviews, you should be okay if you state which format you read. That would certainly help, especially for formatting problems!

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Some may feel a multi-billion dollar corporation can hire their own people to maintain their site. Doesn't feel like charity any more.

They *are* staffing up.
Maybe they're not going to rely solely on the kindness of strangers.

[DiapDealer]

So the general consensus seems to be; "I don't blame GR at all for selling out (and making millions on its members' purely altruistic contributions of time and effort--and their love of books). I just don't like it that Amazon was the buyer." That about right?

Seems to me the angst and anger are a bit misplaced. The community you thought you were building and contributing to ... sold you.

[fjtorres]

"If you're not the customer, you're the product."
You'd think that after Google, Facebook, et al, the message would've gotten through.

TINSTAAFL!

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

So the general consensus seems to be; "I don't blame GR at all for selling out (and making millions on its members' purely altruistic contributions of time and effort--and their love of books). I just don't like it that Amazon was the buyer." That about right?

Seems to me the angst and anger are a bit misplaced. The community you thought you were building and contributing to ... sold you.

It's not my feeling. Maybe it's others.

[gmw]

It's good for Amazon, and for the owners of GoodReads - but that much was obvious, it didn't really need Mark Coker to confirm it, but hey, got to get his brand inserted into this "positive" news somewhere. It's just possible that it may turn out to be good for authors too. But I don't think it's good news for readers, whether you use GR or not. Anything that increases Amazon's influence and reduces competition in the market is not going to be good for readers, and that would appear to be the most likely result of this change. This is not intended as an anti-Amazon stance, I just think that the whole industry loses out.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Rizla

I suppose Amazon used a very small percentage of the money they saved with tax-avoidance to buy Goodreads.

In that case, that money really was put to good use!

[Xanthe]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

But... You don't *know* that the reviews will be duplicated. They might or they might not. All this sudden panicking over an unknown future is just plain amazing.

Well, yes, they would be duplicated - since I would have to post them on both sites for the same book, because I use a different name for myself on each site.

I'd make the effort for an independent site, but not for a mere subsidiary.

[djulian]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

I don't know what is going on with LT and the covers. I happened to be over there adding yesterday too (what with all the news and since they gave everyone a membership to upload more than 200 books). I could see the book covers when I hunted by author (Frank Tuttle yielded his library of books with covers.) I clicked to add each one and...they added fine, but the covers are blank on everything I added yesterday. No idea why. Gremlins.

Not sure what's happening in your case, but because I'm fairly obsessive, I always go to http://www.librarything.com/allyourcovers to check my covers and update ones that go missing when I have a bit of time. It's not many, and it's pretty infrequent.

I have heard that Amazon occasionally pulls covers from LT access. Then you get a blank. A lot of us are uploading our own covers for use by everyone.

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Goodreads members and especially their librarians voluntarily spent many hours maintaining the site. Entering books, metadata, covers and series info. Plus all the reviews and ratings. Editing, editing, organizing and organizing. We're talking hundreds of hours each year all in sharing to make GR a success ... 16 million members and $150 million is evidence.

However, now that Amazon will soon own them there is little incentive for us to continue to do so. Will people volunteer their time to help Amazon earn more money? Some may feel a multi-billion dollar corporation can hire their own people to maintain their site. Doesn't feel like charity any more.

I see, no I wouldn't work for free either, I'm happy to help out if people need some help with, ohh let's say a piece of Japanese translation, knowing that it benefits people interested in a subject but lacking the necessary language skills. But yeah, if that person took the credit for my translation I would feel a tad miffed. So it is an emotional letdown if Amazon start using all that work as something they produced themselves? But what if Amazon would start to reimburse those efforts? Is that a likely scenario?

[cromag]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

I have always been a happy customer, so I'm quite surprised. Is the bad reputation limited to the U.S.? If so, what lies behind the displeasure?

On a business basis, Amazon ruthlessly pursues what is good for Amazon. I was a huge fan, and customer, of Amie Street ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amie_Street ) -- Amazon bought them specifically to close them down and redirect traffic to Amazon. Even when they don't close a site down, like DPReview, they change the focus from independent discussions to Amazon-centric sales efforts.

On a "personal" basis, Amazon is very good at gathering all information and building a good profile, used to personalize their sales effort. I really don't want every word I write to be fed into a profiling effort used to relentlessly sell to me. I don't think every aspect of my life needs to be monetized. Sometimes I just like to participate in a discussion.

Anyway, I'm not leaving (yet), but I'm very apprehensive.

[Rizla]

Now would be an excellent time for someone to set up an alternative to Goodreads and invite the disenchanted usership over to it. Oh, and this time, make it legally-binding that the site or at least users' contributions will not be sold in the future.