This article in The New York Times (@nytimesbooks) by Leslie Kaufman (@leslieNYT) describes Goodreads (@goodreads), “a social media site for finding and sharing titles that has 15 million members.” She says it’s “exploding in popularity and rivaling Amazon.com as a platform for promoting new books.”
The site allows passionate readers to share what they are reading, rate books they have already read, and list what they are considering next. They can do this publicly or among only a self-selected network of online friends. The site is also host to roughly 20,000 organically occurring online book clubs for every preference — from people interested in only Proust to those who prefer history and Tudor-period fiction. There are 314 clubs for paranormal romance fans alone.
Goodreads and smaller similar sites are addressing what publishers call the “discoverability” problem: How do you guide consumers to books they might want to read? The digital age has created online retail sites that are overflowing with new books, leaving readers awash in unknown titles.
At the same time the number of bookstores has shrunk considerably, depriving customers of the ability to browse or ask staff members for guidance.
For a long time Amazon, the largest online bookseller, dominated the digital discovery zone through its book reviews, recommendations and displays on its home page. But Amazon has lost some trust among readers recently amid concerns that its reviews and recommendations can contain hidden agendas.
The theory behind Goodreads and its two main — albeit much smaller — competitors, Shelfari and LibraryThing, is that people will put more faith in book recommendations from a social network they build themselves.
Goodreads includes a recommendation engine, author video chats, book giveaways, and a newsletter that fosters a sense of community. The site is the largest source of independent reviews on the Web, with 21 million and counting.
Also see our previous blogpost, "Findability, Discoverability, & Marketing."
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