Amazon acquires Goodreads
Amazon officially entered India this month, aiming to use the Kindle Store as the thin end of the wedge. The company could earn a lot of goodwill, and a huge market, by pushing e-readers out to India’s library-deprived schools.
Amazon booked it over to social media on Thursday by buying the literary networking platform Goodreads, reported ArsTechnica.
The price had not been revealed as of this writing, it "seems likely to have been in the low eight digits," according to Forbes, nodding to numbers from Crunchbase.
The move comes weeks after the launch of all-star publisher-backed initiative Bookish, noted Forbes, asking churlishly: "Coincidence?"
Armed with user data from Goodreads, Forbes said Amazon will begin implementing services very similar to those of Bookish, which provides a meta-filtered literary experience for book enthusiasts, authors, editors, and publishers.
Put another way, what Pandora does for music — suggests things close to stuff you know you like — Bookish, and now Amazon, will also strive to do.
So, readers of the world, you can stop pouring through book reviews now. But don't stop writing them — these opinion-packed puppies are worth their weight in gold to companies striving to customize user experience.
Goodreads has collected 23 million book reviews, 525 million titles and attracted over 16 million members since its founding in San Francisco in 2007,according to TechRadar. No wonder Amazon bought it!
Plus, the people joining sites like Goodreads tend to be seriously savvy readers. They've long since changed their dog-earing reading habits to allow for things like Kindles.
Knowing this, Goodreads co-founder Otis Chandler gave them a special shout-out in comments on the Thursday sale:
“For all of you Kindle readers, there's obviously an extra bonus in this announcement," Chandler said, according to ArsTechnica, adding: "You've asked us for a long time to be able to integrate your Kindle and Goodreads experiences."
And now, the two shall be as one.