Amazon's GoodReads Takeover and the Start of ThirdScribe

I envisioned our first blog post would be about how we bring authors and readers together , the pending launch of our Beta , and what we bring to the book social networking ecosphere. However, life interrupted that plan and I felt that the recent news in literary circles was far too great to not comment.

In case you haven't heard, late yesterday afternoon, Amazon announced its intention to acquire the leading book based social network Goodreads. Details are a bit hazy right now regarding sales price and terms, but it's obvious from a post by Goodreads founder Otis Chandler and Amazon's own press release that this is a done deal. It's being covered all over the tech sector and beyond on sites such as Wired, The Verge, CNET, TechCrunch, TIPM, GalleyCat, Forbes, Washington Post, Huffington Post, and more. Plus, a great interview with Otis by Laura Owen over on Paid Content. Basically, it's huge.

Go ahead, take your time and check those out of you need to. Then come back and I'll tell you how ThirdScribe can salvage book independence on the internet.

What This Means for Books and Book Lovers
Goodreads wasn't perfect, but it was independent -- famously so, after rejecting Amazon's API terms last year. With over 16 million members, thousands of book clubs in its forums, and umpteen zillion book ratings and reviews, it was the preeminent place for book lovers to come and talk books. It allowed for book advertising, book promotions and giveaways, a plethora of forums on nearly every topic you can imagine, and links to nearly every place on the planet where books are sold.

It was also a service that was free for all, and, as Pinboard's founder Maciej has long opined, free services really only have one true way to turn a profit -- and GoodReads just landed its big payday.

So, what now? What does this mean for the book community?

First, and I don't think this is a stretch to anyone's imagination, just like on Shelfari, I expect that very soon the only sales links on GoodReads will be to Amazon or its subsidiary for used books, AbeBooks. Too bad Nook, Kobo, iBooks, Google, Sony, Books-A-Million, Powells, etc. It's an Amazon world over on GoodReads from now on.

In other words, GoodReads is no longer a place for independent book discussion, as it is now forever shadowed by the spectre of its new owner.

Otis and his team say they are to remain in charge of GoodReads and I'm sure they will. It's just that now they will have a boss, and that boss will want some results. What those are, we don't know exactly, but I'm sure it has much to do with selling books on Amazon and I'm sure they will use the full arsenal to do so. Which means that the personal information and book habits of 16 million people just became the property of the world's largest online retailer and its budding advertising network.

On the plus side, GoodReads users will probably have a lot more options to connect their Amazon usage with their GoodReads usage -- wishlists, reviews, and book lists will probably all be integrated in the next year or so. They might even cross-connect the Book Encyclopedia-ish data from Shelfari to the GoodReads experience. So, there's that.

When we first laid the foundation for ThirdScribe, we never felt that GoodReads was a competitor. On the contrary, we envisioned them as a perfect partner, as we utilize their API as a source of external book reviews to complement our own in-house review system (and will continue to do so). We do the same thing with Amazon as well as others. ThirdScribe is meant to help readers find books to read, and reviews are an essential part of that. We felt there was plenty of room in the book networking environment for all of us.

In reading the hundreds of comments around the web on the GoodReads-Amazon merger, I've seen a majority of the comments centered around the loss of an independent voice -- thousands crying out that they don't want to be a cog in Amazon's sales machine. While we didn't envision that role for ThirdScribe, we do have the infrastructure in place to do so. So I say to everyone reading this, if you're looking for a new literary shelter on the web, we can help.

What the Heck is ThirdScribe?
ThirdScribe is a social networking service designed from the ground up to connect authors and their audience. It does this by combining a social stream with forums, book pages, reviews, member profiles, and a blog network to form a giant discussion about books. If it was a Hollywood pitch, it would probably be something like this:

"Picture This: Facebook and WordPress have a baby, it grows up raised by librarians then falls in love with a beautiful web designer, and together they bring literary fulfillment to millions!"

In the next few days we're going to start ramping up our web presence tremendously, so you'll see a lot more information on what ThirdScribe is and how it works very shortly. Feel free to sign up for our Beta or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+ to get the latest updates. But, before you go, there is one thing I want to make clear: We have a plan to monetize and it is not advertising or affiliate links.

ThirdScribe is a "freemium" service that is member supported. There are no ads here and we do not track personal information. It is free for Members to join, but for authors who want to list their books on the service, as well as take advantage of the many, many other social and marketing services, there is a fee. As our membership grows, we have a roadmap to expand our services to benefit book sellers and publishers, as well.

Why aren't we completely free to everyone like GoodReads, BookLikes, and others? By aligning our revenue with our members we ensure our member's interests are our best interests. In other words, we want to put our effort behind making our members happy instead of selling them to advertisers. It's a little bit of a different paradigm, sure, but in light of this latest merger I'm sure you can see the benefit.

So, please, sign up and stay tuned!