Goodreads Acquired by Amazon

Just heard the news that Amazon has acquired Goodreads.

I like Amazon and love my Kindle. I really enjoy participating on Goodreads and tracking my reads on the site. I had very mixed feelings about the news.

Here’s what I posted in a comment on the blog post:

I have a Kindle, and it’s what I prefer to read on, but there are other eReaders out there. I like diversity. I like it that people have a choice of eReader and eBook format. Having GoodReads skew towards Kindle is not something I welcome. [Note: the Goodreads blog post mentioned integration with Kindle.]

I also hope that if there is integration of reviews, it is optional. [Note: several commenters on Goodreads mentioned this as something they’d like to see.] I use Goodreads as a more “personal” site, and Amazon as the more public. I generally write very different sorts of reviews for each site. The reviews on GR are for myself, my family, and my friends, and then for other general readers. My reviews on Amazon are targeted toward people who are considering reading (and buying) the book, and I try to make them useful for someone to decide whether they want to spend the time/money/effort on the book — whether I have similar taste to them or opposite — and once I write them, I rarely look at them again.

I hope that GR does, indeed, remain independent.

P.S. Congrats to the Goodreads team for their success.