Ugh — so Goodreads has sold out to Amazon. I can’t blame them for that, although I can blame them for titling their announcement of the sale with “We’re Joining the Amazon Family!” I immediately see visions of Tom Hanks from “That Thing You Do” welcoming Goodreads to the Playtone Galaxy of Stars.
Anyway, according to the press release/blog post about the acquisition from GoodReads, basically this will allow Goodreads to directly integrate with the Kindle (barf) as if Amazon’s constant attempts to upsell Kindle users books wasn’t already extensive enough. But, promises Goodreads CEO Otis Chandler,
It’s important to be clear that Goodreads and the awesome team behind it are not going away. Goodreads will continue to be the wonderful community that we all cherish. We plan to continue offering you everything that you love about the site—the ability to track what you read, discover great books, discuss and share them with fellow book lovers, and connect directly with your favorite authors—and your reviews and ratings will remain here on Goodreads. And it’s incredibly important to us that we remain a home for all types of readers, no matter if you read on paper, audio, digitally, from scrolls, or even stone tablets.
I certainly hope so as I don’t look forward to having to re-enter all of my book information into some other service 6 months from now. Please, please, please, Amazon, don’t pull a Google Reader on Goodreads fans.