Ever since the news broke that Amazon will acquire Goodreads, readers, writers and publishing folk have been arguing about what it means.
Some readers already want to change social networks, and AppNewser has a list of non-Amazon alternatives to Goodreads. Amazon has an indirect stake in LibraryThing, a site where readers can share their book collections. Creator Tim Spalding wrote an evocative note about the acquisition:
Now that Goodreads is just Amazon, the time and money publishers spend on Goodreads is like everything else they do with Amazon–good in the short term, but suffocating them in the long-term. The same goes for many other players. With Amazon in the drivers’ seat, you can bet that B&N, Kobo and Indies are going to drop and be dropped by Goodreads like a hot potato. If any non-Amazon “buy” buttons remain, they’re going to be buried deep. And B&N is hardly going to encourage people to use Goodreads now that every item of data Goodreads get goes to build Amazon and the Kindle features Goodreads is promising. In short, we gained a lot of friends today.
(Via Jennifer Howard)