Fantasy Aficionados discussion

As of March 28, 2013: Goodreads is 'joining the Amazon family'. Good or bad? Any thoughts?

Here's the blurb from Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/413

Here's the link to the press release: http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.z...

sigh so annoyed that Goodreads sold out to Amazon. There's a reason I have a To-Read list on Goodreads instead of a Wishlist on Amazon. I liked the fact that Goodreads doesn't pester me to review books nor does it to care if the book was borrowed from the library or a friend rather than bought. Nor does Goodreads unless I specifically go to the recommends page hound me about books I might "like to read". Amazon does all that crap! and if Goodreads starts then bye-bye Goodreads.

I cut down most if not all the Amazon emails by checking the "Do not send me marketing e-mail" box in the E-mail Notification Settings of my Amazon account.

I cut out most of the marketing emails too but since I borrow ebooks through my library on my kindle I still have to deal with their website and I still get the emails hounding me to review and or buy books that I have borrowed through the library. I just really like that Goodreads isn't always trying to sell me crap. I get enough of that from other sites. I use Goodreads to talk about books in the groups and get the order of a series right. Plus as far as I can tell Goodreads doesn't censor reviews like amazon does.

Let's hope that Amazon keeps what's good at GR (eg forum/reviews) and improves what's bad (eg server issues).

Stephanie wrote: "sigh so annoyed that Goodreads sold out to Amazon. There's a reason I have a To-Read list on Goodreads instead of a Wishlist on Amazon. I liked the fact that Goodreads doesn't pester me to review b..."

Really? I've been with both GoodReads and Amazon for years (including Amazon Prime for about 2 years now), and other than Amazon asking for a review if I choose to rate a book, I've never been bothered by anything you've mentioned.

I do worry about the censorship part. While I tend to keep most of my reviews open to everyone, in one of my last reviews, I quoted a line where a character swears. It was one of the few funny parts of the book, and I just liked it a great deal, and wanted to remember the good things in the book. Amazon would have had me bleep the swear word.

I just really don't like the idea of a company who's sole goal is to sell me their stuff "acquiring" one of the few websites/forums I can go to and not be constantly corporate advertized at.

I worry about it too. On the other hand, I usually go to Amazon when I'm looking for hard-to-find books, especially in hardcover.

I have no problem buying stuff from Amazon. I own a Kindle. I just have a growing pet peeve of everything being owned by the same big corporations. Quality always seems to go down hill when this happens.

Ads are easy enough to block. I do it all the time with every site I'm on, including this one.

Between "Ad BlocK" and "Ghostry" (Which I've used w/ both FireFox and Chrome) I rarely, if ever, see online ads.

While I understand people being concerned about changes, its the "The Sky is Falling", all out panic that frustrates me the most. We don't yet know how this will effect us, hopefully we will get our questiones answered sooner than later. Until then, why panic?

Agreed, Nyssa.
I also have not had trouble with ads. An occasional message to review *shrug* easily ignored or delete.

I'll wait and see.....maybe it won't effect goodreads adversely.

I don't intend to quit at least not unless Goodreads drastically goes downhill. My reviews aren't really true reviews more like quick thoughts on the book so that doesn't bother me much. I more concerned with how posts to groups might be used by Amazon to try and sell me books or if they start restricting links or linking all books to Amazon

Amazon is smart enough to know not to restrict links to other booksellers. Besides, I'm guessing they want people to compare.

I have found many a book at Barnes & Noble that I've purchased from Amazon instead: 1. I am a Kindle user; 2. The paper copy was less expensive on Amazon than at Barnes & Noble; and/or 3. The book is available on Amazon and not at my local brick and mortar Barnes and Noble..and as an Amazon Prime member will, again, cost less as far as time and shipping.

And no, I do not think Amazon is "perfect" nor the best option for everyone.. I just think they're pretty smart.

I don't mind Amazon. I don't do a lot of online shopping, but when I do it is generally through Amazon. Where books are concerned, however, I tend to shop through Google Play. I have a Nexus 7. Before that, I had a Nook. So, though I do have the Kindle app, I do not have any Kindle books. I like that I can set up where the "buy this book" link will take me, and I am concerned that may change.

I've never actually reviewed anything on Amazon, so I'm not certain what the hesitation is with having the reviews borrowed. Have there been difficulties?

As it is, though, I'm fairly new to Goodreads. I feel much worse for those who have spent considerable time here and are feeling betrayed by the selling and taking over. This truly seems like a remarkable experience, and I'll be sad to lose out on the opportunity to partake if it changes drastically.

As far as I can tell, the culture of the sites are different. I don't really want my reviews in a situation where they are so directly tied to a purchase, and honestly, I also don't want my reviews to be in a culture where they are down-voted as well as upvoted. My reviews, like a lot of reviews here on GR, are kind of my personal reaction to books--if they're helpful to someone, that's wonderful, but they're not necessarily useful in a purchasing situation. It seems that Amazon reviews much more directly answer the question, "Should you buy this book [from Amazon]?" I'm really not thrilled that according to the TOS, GR owns an irrevocable license to do whatever they want with my reviews, including deleting them, posting them to a different site, selling them, modifying them, and making a profit off of them. So all the things that people suspect Amazon of actually doing, GR has the right to do according to its TOS. That felt like less of an issue when GR was independent.

I'm also concerned that GR's TOS says they have the right to transfer all the personal info (including profile info) to Amazon. I'm pseudoanonymous here, but Amazon would be able to trivially link email addresses to my real identity...possibly publicly...and I don't really want to publicly link those.

BUT on the positive side, this should mean that GR will start using Amazon Cloud or at least some of the Amazon computing resources (which are enormous)...no more GR outages, hopefully.

Red wrote: Amazon place a number of restrictions on reviews posted to their own site.

Wow. I had no idea. That is so incredibly unfortunate. I have a much better understanding now of why this is a concern. I'm second guessing whether or not I want to keep my own reviews here. =/

Carly wrote: I'm also concerned that GR's TOS says they have the right to transfer all the personal info (including profile info) to Amazon. I'm pseudoanonymous here, but Amazon would be able to trivially link email addresses to my real identity...possibly publicly...and I don't really want to publicly link those.

THAT I definitely have a problem with!

SkyddsDrake wrote: "Red wrote: Amazon place a number of restrictions on reviews posted to their own site.

Wow. I had no idea. That is so incredibly unfortunate. I have a much better understanding now of why this i..."

They almost certainly won't link them, at least publicly. The TOS always gives the site far more liberties than they take. But I'm just...kind of worried about it anyway.

Carly wrote: They almost certainly won't link them, at least publicly. The TOS always gives the site far more liberties than they take. But I'm just...kind of worried about it anyway.

That's very true. I can understand the concern. Just because they don't seem inclined to do it now doesn't mean it won't happen at some point.

It was just over a year ago we all spent hours saving books due to Amazon refusing GR permission to use its data!

Yes. And the GR world didn't end. Which is why I don't see the point in losing it over this either, at least not until we have actual information.

Like others have stated: my reviews are really more geared towards "This is how I felt at the time", then for any useful analysis or sales pitch. I automatically censor myself and tend to keep them rated PG at the worst.

Amazon owns IMDB and a 40% stake in Librarything. Little if anything changed about those two places.

I'm on LT, have been for couple years. The only change I saw was when I recently wanted to add to my books and found out I now needed to pay for membership as I had reached the 'free' limit.

I don't do much as far as social interaction on IMDB either, but I haven't notice a spew of Amazon ads or anything of the sort.

I just didn't find LT's groups ac active as the one's here on GR or their interface being as refined, which is what made me become more active here.

Nyssa wrote: "Yes. And the GR world didn't end. Which is why I don't see the point in losing it over this either, at least not until we have actual information.
"
Hmmm....I think GR has one of the most problematic TOSes of any of the big social networks, mainly due to (a) the lack of limitations on the license (the DeviantArt and Tumblr licenses are "solely for the purpose of operating the service") and (b) that "irrevocable" license bit, which neither Twitter nor Facebook, etc have. I'm just more concerned about Amazon abusing the terms than I was about GR on its own... and I think GR members voicing concerns now puts pressure on Amazon to behave.

Although, for interest, LibraryThing also asserts "perpetual, irrevocable, omnipotent" control over your content. So it's not exactly like there's a better alternative for book lovers.

I think you're right about waiting and seeing what happens.

One of the problems I see with this acquisition is reviews. So far, anyone can post reviews on GR, but Amazon forbids writers to post reviews. I'm a writer. Does it mean I'll be unable to post my reviews on GR? Should I search for alternatives, other people's blogs, if I want to continue publishing my reviews? Or should I give up reviewing books altogether? I so enjoyed this aspect of GR - sharing my reviews and reading other readers' reviews.

Interesting link: Author's Guild on Amazon's acquisition of GR:
http://www.authorsguild.org/advocacy/...

Interesting, Olga, especially the very heated comments below the article. I don't think you need to worry--suddenly banning authors from being able to write reviews and making them only partial members in the community would be an extremely efficient way of alienating a large part of GR. And I found an article where amazon claims to have no plans to move our reviews (directly) over to amazon. Granted, they will obviously want to increase cross-traffic, plus now have our data. I wonder how long this has been in the works. GR's api has become increasingly restrictive, which makes since given the value of the exclusivity of the information.

Olga wrote: "Interesting link: Author's Guild on Amazon's acquisition of GR:
http://www.authorsguild.org/advocacy/..."

Thanks for the link, Olga-I just spent the last hour reading the comments. Interesting to see the opposing viewpoints of the authors.

Personally, I'm in a holding pattern. I like goodreads too much to just close my account without seeing how things play out.

Red wrote: "Well, I think it's sensible to pull content (like reviews) now rather than later, if you don't want that content to be used by Amazon. There's no point shutting the stable door after the horse has ..."

This is exactly what I've been doing for the last three days. My reviews are making a mass exodus to my blog and I'm leaving behind a snarky stub or snub where my review used to be:

Due to the acquisition of GoodReads by Amazon on March 28, 2013 and my existing and continuing boycott of all things Amazon, the review I wrote after reading this book has been relocated to my blog and can be found in its entirety by following this link:

I mix it up and make it relevant to the book if it hasn't been too long since I've read it.

Can't express how sad and disappointed I am that Amazon gobbled up GoodReads.

Olga wrote: "One of the problems I see with this acquisition is reviews. So far, anyone can post reviews on GR, but Amazon forbids writers to post reviews. I'm a writer. Does it mean I'll be unable to post my r..."

I really hope they don't mess with the author reviews. I'm an author, but I'm a big reader, too, and I enjoy writing reviews. I think it's silly to just forbid all authors from writing reviews. I know some of them are doing it just to increase sales, but not ALL of us do that. :/

L.Y., I agree. I'm a reader too and I don't write reviews to generate sales for anyone - just to express my opinion about books I read.

It can be a good thing. Amazon has the potential to bring more features to Goodreads, but I just don't want the reviews merged.

This is great because it is the American way that one person should eventually have all the money in the country.

While I don't think I'll take my reviews down (I really only have a couple at this point anyway), I do think I'll copy them to my blog. That way I'll still be able to go back and reference them as I wrote them, no matter what might happen.

I think it would be really sad if authors weren't allowed to write reviews of the books they're reading. I have a big admiration for writers who are active readers as well! It seems unfair to penalize them for appreciating the other side of their craft. :(

I won't write free reviews for amazon. I'll just use it to keep tracks of books I've read.

Malrubius wrote: "This is great because it is the American way that one person should eventually have all the money in the country."

Come on now... that's not fair. Technically it's like 3 or 4 people.

Becky wrote: "Malrubius wrote: "This is great because it is the American way that one person should eventually have all the money in the country."

Come on now... that's not fair. Technically it's like 3 or 4 pe..."

You win this round, Becky! (Technically it is actually about 400 people.)

WINNING!! :D

Have you noticed that our moderators refrain from comments in this discussion? They are usually more vocal. And the same happens in every other group I'm a member of: the moderators in similar discussions are either silent or very cautious. That little fact says more about the entire situation than our messages ever could.

By "our moderators" do you mean mods of this group, or the site? I know MrsJ has been... err, very vocal about her opinion of this sit-chee-a-shun. But that's more in Feedback.

And there have been Goodreads Staff comments there too, but less than I'd like.

Yeah, I've been raising hell in Feedback.

Then I went into a grief spiral.

Sorry I haven't meant to neglect yall. I'm just trying to process.

Oh, I didn't know there was a Feedback. Is it a discussion common to all groups?

Olga wrote: "Oh, I didn't know there was a Feedback. Is it a discussion common to all groups?"

It is a group: http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1

Here are some of the discussions about the Amazon issue:
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

Thanks,Becky. The Feedback discussion is even more depressing than it's here. Ouch! So many upset GoodReaders. And nobody answers the questions about our reviews. Will we still own them? Will writers be barred from posting reviews? Or should we export our reviews someplace else, like several of you are already doing?

Indeed... Otis has said that we will keep control of our reviews, but that's a different thing than owning.

As to the rest... I don't know. Time will tell.

As it stands, we have full rights to put our reviews elsewhere, anywhere we want, but GR maintains full rights to keep/modify/post wherever whatever we have written here. In an interview, Amazon claimed to have no plans of using our reviews on Amazon.

Sooo...anyone with an entrepreneurial streak want to create a new booklovers social network startup that lets us maintain full control over our reviews? I'll join...

Creating a social network like GR is hard work. We can start with a group book blog site, which is much easier. I'll join, but I'm digitally challenged. Someone else will have to create and maintain that site. I'd also volunteer as one of the moderators, if such a position becomes necessary, although I'm not ready to abandon GR completely. I'll stay and see what happens here.

Olga wrote: "Creating a social network like GR is hard work. We can start with a group book blog site, which is much easier. I'll join, but I'm digitally challenged. Someone else will have to create and maintai..."

I was joking...GR was a genuine startup with vc backing...I doubt that could happen again. Although it actually would be a viable low-effort project if an sn platform like ning was used, I can't even imagine the legal gordian knot it would create...

This particular mod is trying not to get too worked up... I like reviewing, but I also like discussing books so I'm not about to jump ship yet. I did start my own blog some time ago, because I was sick of all the GR downtime a, but I don't have the same book-loving audience. There is a lot of hysteria right now, and its an interesting issue. If the site was created with invested money, there needs to be a payoff. That said, it is what it is because of the collective. So personally, I feel there was some selling out involved, but who wouldn't want to be a millionaire? I wish the would have charged membership and kept it self-owned though. But ppl would not have liked that either.

I'm doing the blog thing now...just to make sure I have my reviews in a place that is clearly mine. I'm not leaving GR...but I do want to control my data more.

I have to admit I'd prefer Carol's suggestion. But I might have sold out for the numbers they are tossing around.