Amazon.com to Acquire Goodreads

[tubemonkey]

All your review are belong to us Amazon

[pixiestyx]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

It took me a couple of days to sort out my own unease, but in my case it comes down to this:
...

What I don't want is Amazon funneling their own site traffic to GR. Many people discover GR after running from the chaos that is the Amazon forums.

This post pretty much covers exactly how I feel. I don't hate Amazon, in fact I'm a Prime member. But I started using Goodreads because the reviews on both Amazon and B&N are horrible. I got tired of the random 1 star reviews for things completely unrelated to the book.

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

Another thing that concerns me is "Goodreads as marketing venue". I hope the authors reading will read all of it before getting mad at me, because it's probably not you that I'm talking about.

Also agree about the authors, there are quite a few that I follow on GR because I love their books and want to keep up with their blog posts & the projects they are working on - but I definitely don't want "please buy my book" spam.

I too am going to continue to use my account for now and wait to see what happens. If I only used GR for cataloging I would definitely move back to LT (and I might still upgrade my account there as a "back-up"), but I would sorely miss the bookclubs I've joined and friends I've made on GR.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Why is it so important to certain MR members to characterize those who criticize GR's acquisition as "hating Amazon"? It reminds me of Glenn Beck responding to diverse opinions with the rhetorical question, "Why do you hate America?"

Repeating the idea that people who are unhappy about the acquisition must "hate Amazon" is as irrelevant as asking why someone who's being evicted hates landlords.

It's the situation people dislike, not Amazon itself, or they wouldn't have waited for this particular situation to complain.

Is it just easier to dismiss our opponents as hyperbolic than it is to recognize their opinions are as valid as our own?

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

Why is it so important to certain MR members to characterize those who criticize GR's acquisition as "hating Amazon"? It reminds me of Glenn Beck responding to diverse opinions with the rhetorical question, "Why do you hate America?"

Cool!! A great way to start a reasonable conversation. Compare people who disagree with you to Glen Beck.

Since I'm one of those that mentioned Amazon hate, I'll try for a reasonable answer.

The sale has just been announced. *Today*, nothing has changed on GR and yet there are some number of users who have decided that the end is near and the only option is to run away.

What could be the reason for this sudden desire to leave GR? You don't trust Amazon? I agree it's a big evil corporation, but there are examples of big evil corporations doing the right thing.

To *me* it appears to be a sly bit of Amazon hate or at least corporation hate. Nobody seems to want to wait and see what happens?

In the end, the whole thing means nothing to me. If evil Amazon *does eventurally* screw up GR, I'll make my decision at that time. Until then, they get the benifit of doubt and the opportunity of doing the right thing.

[pidgeon92]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

Why is it so important to certain MR members to characterize those who criticize GR's acquisition as "hating Amazon"?

I think perhaps the ones who are characterized as "hating Amazon" are those that immediately terminated their accounts, vs. those who are criticizing the acquisition. I think most people who are criticizing are adopting a "let's wait and see what happens" attitude prior to dumping their accounts.

I'm not thrilled about it either, and I like Amazon just fine.

[fjtorres]

And then there are those of us that find the whole "sky is falling!" handwringing amusing.
Like this delightful piece of panic-mongering:
http://www.authorsguild.org/advocacy...-can-be-built/

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by Canuck_in_Japan

I'm disappointed to hear about this news but can't quite put my finger on why. I suppose I have very little faith in the "paid for" reviews over on Amazon and I'm a little worried that that will spread to Goodreads. If Amazon wants to get data on what people are reading then that's fine with me. I just hope it doesn't get any worse than that.

Ummm, there are paid for and sock puppet reviews on GR already just like there are other places. You just see them more on Amazon because it gets the author the most bang for their buck.

[jersysman]

Originally Posted by bkirsten

Brian from FictFact here. We are only Amazon affiliates, Amazon has no direct connection to our site (we do host on Amazon AWS, but we pay them for that). We discovered that from an affiliate perspective Amazon does the best with our users (with Apple and Audible in distant 2nd and 3rd place) which is why it seems a bit more prominent on our site.

Thanks for commenting and clearing things up, Brian. Between Goodreads and FictFact, I have all of my ebook selection and review taken care of.

[jersysman]

Originally Posted by booklover6

I like FictFact! I think the data base is not quite as extensive as goodreads'. Also I don't think there is any social component there, not that I have seen.

Shelfari---logged in this afternoon, still don't care for it. Library Thing...not really my Thing.

booklover6 there is a small social content over at FictFact. You can follow reviews and have followers there. Of course not as extensive as elsewhere, but it does fit in with what the site is.

[dalai]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

Cool!! A great way to start a reasonable conversation. Compare people who disagree with you to Glen Beck.

In fairness, I believe Prestidigitweeze compared people who attribute baseless and/or negative characterizations to people they don't agree with to Glen Beck.

Originally Posted by jgaiser

The sale has just been announced. *Today*, nothing has changed on GR and yet there are some number of users who have decided that the end is near and the only option is to run away.

What could be the reason for this sudden desire to leave GR? You don't trust Amazon? I agree it's a big evil corporation, but there are examples of big evil corporations doing the right thing.

Well it depends on what GR users are concerned about. If someone doesn't want Amazon to have access to what they are reading and what they like -- for whatever reason that may be and it doesn't have to be corporate hate -- then what is the point in waiting? Moreover, if it is easy to just move your info (to LT for example) and you don't mind doing that, why not go ahead and let the new Goodreads try to earn your trust?

I will agree that a wait and see is a more reasonable response, but I share many of the concerns that have been voiced in this thread and understand those that want to drop GR sooner than later.

[Rizla]

All the Amazon haters! Pity poor Amazon! They need your sympathy! sheesh

More seriously, an alternative to Goodreads with ads would be fine as long as user contributions could not be sold. I think people would go for it. There are highly successful community sites that are ad-driven. As long as the ads are not to intrusive, people deal with it. The understand the site has to be paid for.

The Amazon-eats-Goodreads (and the rest of the world to follow) debacle offers an excellent opportunity for someone with the knowledge and time to set up an quick alternative and invite people over. It only needs a basic site to begin with with development to follow. Ultimately this is the way to defeat the big competition-eating organizations like Amazon. It's cat and mouse. Add the caveat that no user contributions can be sold, and we may ultimately have an Amazon killer.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Rizla

Add the caveat that no user contributions can be sold, and we may ultimately have an Amazon killer.

'Cause it's certainly generally accepted that Amazon needs to die.

[latepaul]

Originally Posted by Rizla

The Amazon-eats-Goodreads (and the rest of the world to follow) debacle offers an excellent opportunity for someone with the knowledge and time to set up an quick alternative and invite people over. It only needs a basic site to begin with with development to follow.

I suspect that without a lot of start-up money cash-flow would be a very tricky balance. Probably you'd either fail completely or level out at a small-to-medium size site (1,000s users) where you couldn't grow easily to the next level without more money. Which could be fine but certainly not an Amazon-killer.

There is a solution to the money issue: find a big backer prepared to invest lots of money up front and wait months or years for you to establish yourself before you're profitable. That gives you time to develop the site. Time to attract users. Time to attract advertisers. However that's basically what Goodreads did and they probably would never have got the VC money if they had hamstrung themselves by promising never to capitalize on one of the biggest assets they had - the user data.

[Canuck_in_Japan]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Ummm, there are paid for and sock puppet reviews on GR already just like there are other places. You just see them more on Amazon because it gets the author the most bang for their buck.

Hence I would prefer Amazon and Goodreads remain separate entities.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by latepaul

I suspect that without a lot of start-up money cash-flow would be a very tricky balance. Probably you'd either fail completely or level out at a small-to-medium size site (1,000s users) where you couldn't grow easily to the next level without more money. Which could be fine but certainly not an Amazon-killer.

There is a solution to the money issue: find a big backer prepared to invest lots of money up front and wait months or years for you to establish yourself before you're profitable. That gives you time to develop the site. Time to attract users. Time to attract advertisers. However that's basically what Goodreads did and they probably would never have got the VC money if they had hamstrung themselves by promising never to capitalize on one of the biggest assets they had - the user data.

I was really hoping GR would start SELLING ebooks and become a viable competitor! They had the eyeballs and some of it set up and working. Then mysteriously about 6 months or so ago, they stopped allowing sales of ePUB. I had one book up there for sale...and when I went to add...I think it was Dragons, the only option was to add it for free download. I'm guessing now they were already in discussions to sell and they didn't want to spend resources on the program.

But that would have been another possible business model had they wanted to really pursue it.