Book reports: Books and readers online

[bibliofile]

Amazon just bought Goodreads. I don't use Goodreads (and I try to avoid Amazon*), but I know people who do. For the retailer and publisher of books -- and monopoly wannabe -- to acquire a social/discussion site means that Goodreads is about to become commercially biased where it wasn't before. Implications abound. Oh, and this also means that

Comments

[bibliofile]

I never got into Goodreads because I don't need another site to catalog books personally, and I prefer more interactive places (e.g., LJ!) for talking about books.

Looking at the Goodreads Terms of Service (ToS), I doubt that I would ever have signed up: they claim permanent and universal rights to everything you post there. Which, y'know, YIKES.

Or at least export it for archival purposes? Or maybe the real question is, do you try to keep an archive of stuff you write & put out in the world? That's probably my real question. I haven't managed it, but I do try to keep copies of stuff that I've written in fanzines, for example.

Is there any way to pull your content off or at least make it private? With those ToS and computer technology, it probably wouldn't be permanent, but showing intent might provide a very tiny bit of comfort.

[bibliofile]

http://www.goodreads.com/help/show/10-how-do-i-cancel-my-account

[marykaykare]

I'm pretty unhappy too. I avoid Amazon whenever possible, but sometimes it's not. I've only been in Good Reads a few months & have posted only a very few short reviews. I'm just sorry Amazon has gobbled up something else. If I'd been there for years posting lots of substantive reviews, I'd kill either myself or Bezos. And I already hate him for other reasons so what's the betting?

MKK

[kattegat]

Keep in mind that LibraryThing is 40% owned by Amazon - so it could go the way of Goodreads.