Forum / Amazon buys Goodreads

  • Frankie Saxx
    Mar 28, 11:34pm

    Does anyone besides me care?

    (I hate Amazon almost as much as Gloria hates nuclear stuff.)

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    Gloria Garfunkel
    Mar 28, 11:53pm

    I hate being the only one who hates something.

  • Frankie Saxx
    Mar 29, 12:02am

    On Twitter, you never have to hate alone.

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    Gloria Garfunkel
    Mar 29, 12:33am

    Down the generations, they'll hate us plenty for our nukes and waste. We are going to be so hated.

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    James Claffey
    Mar 29, 01:28am

    canceled my account

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    Gloria Garfunkel
    Mar 29, 05:25am

    I don't hate it as much as it scares me to death.

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    Matthew Robinson
    Mar 29, 05:56am

    I'm saddened by the gesture Goodreads made with this. I'm saddened by the irony of it. It's a faith-killer. A deflator.

  • Frankie Saxx
    Mar 29, 08:51am

    Matt, James, agree. I used Goodreads (despite its many flaws and minor irritations) because it was the only major book community untouched by Amazon.

    I guess the lesson we learn here is that if you want to talk about books on the internet, Amazon wants a link back. And it would be a shame if something happened to your nice book site.

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    Jane Flett
    Mar 29, 09:34am

    Bugger.

  • Frankie Saxx
    Mar 29, 11:23am

    So... is there another Amazon-free site for rating and reviewing books?

    I know they already bought Shelfari, and they got 40% of Librarything when they picked up Abe Books.

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    Marcus Speh
    Mar 29, 12:21pm

    Found this response to the purchase of Goodreads by Amazon on the net somewhere. Thought I share it with you. It seems confused but these times are complicated. I sense a certain religious subtext but perhaps it can be forgiven because these times require special spirit...

    "....now, that is quite impressive on the open-ended monopoly scale. But customers LOVE amazon and they LOVE kindle. Authors who care about being LOVED by MANY readers ought to get in bed, or stay in bed with Amazon. It's not going to be like rape, or if it is, it's going to be a very slow rape that in the end will feel like a true relationship. Because the CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, has publicly said that he LOVES books. And one has to admit he has done a lot for the book as a commodity. Almost as much as Hitler did for progressive literature by singling out all those books he LOVED and burning the rest. I know this is not fair, how could it be: Bezos is not Hitler, rape is not relationship and book is not nook, nor is LOVE love. Or is it? Every term I show my students the interview Charlie Rose did with Jeff Bezos in 2007 when the Kindle came out and every year more students have a Kindle or read on their smartphones while thinking Bezos weird and making fun of his tic which is visible in the interview (you gotta check it out: he says there that he LOVES books). Of course every writer has the choice to withdraw from the market and focus on the writing. We can all cancel our accounts, stop writing reviews and so on. We can seek alternatives to nuclear energy. Under a Hitler, we can leave our families and skip the country and our language. all I'm saying: it's not as easy as it sounds to separate from the system. But the very least we can do is talk about it openly while we still can. Myself, I ordered a book from Amazon yesterday and wrote a review for goodreads and posted on Facebook, now I'm writing this (who knows when Fictionaut will be sold?) and later I'll lie down because I'm ill and I'll let my Kindle read something to me with a metallic robotic voice that one can get ised to just as one can get used to getting one's money from a machine, paying with an e-mail or tweeting one's significant other, or asking a box with a voice how to get anywhere in the city. And of course, I've not typed any of this, I've spoken it using software that turned my mumbling into readable, hard prose for what it's worth. Amen."

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    Sam Rasnake
    Mar 29, 01:16pm

    Amazon buying Goodreads is – for better, for worse – a logical port on the river on which we – all technological participants (e.g. purveyors, perpetrators [maybe traffickers is the best term] in Facebook, Fictionaut, Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, Pinterest and on and on) – maneuver our rafts. I’m sure there’s a delta somewhere.

    The computer is, of course, the printing press, monks painfully inking the world, hands painting on cavern walls, clay tablets, the first story ever told, poetry made from trees – according to Robert Graves – and the birth of language. I have no real concept of the copulation that created language but there certainly must have been one.

    We are what we type. You’ll have to overlook me. I’m reading Beckett these days.

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    James Lloyd Davis
    Mar 29, 01:26pm

    Not hating Amazon today... not.

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    strannikov
    Mar 29, 01:29pm

    Nook and Kindle have not only begun to obviate the book (a perfectly biodegradable commodity in itself, according to anything I ever learned about chemistry): they also thoroughly dispense with the bookshelf as a piece of furniture (which in its natural non-digital, cellulose state is also thoroughly biodegradable).

    Insidious: they'll steal our floors next if we're not careful: frankly, I depend on my floors for bookshelf space in between annual and/or biennial acquistions of fresh bookshelves.

    I rely on Amazon exclusively as a source for ISBNs. I then order my books from the bookstore I think most likely to carry the title or the one willing to order a copy for me.

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    Marcus Speh
    Apr 02, 08:26pm

    Good analysis in The Atlantic: the simple reason why Amazon bought Goodreads — http://bit.ly/Z6OaAi

    Thanks to Steve Cavrak who shared this.

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    Charlotte Hamrick
    Apr 02, 08:38pm

    I see I'm in the minority but I like Amazon and buy from it often. Music, books, TV's, freezers....
    Of course, I hate to shop and buying online with home delivery is so easy. I support and buy from my local booksellers as well, especially books by local authors, so it all evens out in the end. I like having the choice.

    As for Nook, etc., love e-readers. Less clutter to keep up. :) (Simplicity is my mantra!)

  • Frankie Saxx
    Apr 04, 08:43am

    Saw this on Bookriot's Twitter this AM

    12 Alternatives to Goodreads: http://ow.ly/jHDdQ

    Signed up for Booklikes. So far, okay. Supposed to import my Goodreads, but there's a notice that it's slow. Interface is a straight rip from Tumblr, so if you're on Tumblr you know what you're doing.

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