Birds on the Brain

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. Amazon was convinced enough by the concept that it bought Shelfari in 2008. It also owns a portion of LibraryThing as a result of purchasing companies that already owned a stake in the site.

Goodreads members represent a small portion of all book buyers, and it is not immune from some of the politicking that goes on elsewhere — authors are not prevented from reviewing their own books, for instance. But advocates consider this acceptable because readers can choose their own reviewers.

“Because Goodreads is not a publisher or retailer, people feel that the information is not getting manipulated,” said Amanda Close, who runs digital marketplace development for Random House. “People trust them because they are so crowd-sourced and their members are fanatics. You can’t buy a five-star review there.”

(via Goodreads.com Is Growing as a Popular Book Site - NYTimes.com)

I have an account on Goodreads, but I’m not good at keeping it up-to-date.