Goodreads was the future of book reviews. Then Amazon bought it.
https:// www.washingtonpost.com /technology/2023/07/01/amazon-goodreads-elizabeth-gilbert/ Goodreads was the future of book reviews. Then Amazon bought it.
đ Time to switch to BookWyrm
EDIT: Fairly incredible that this article should appear on WaPo, which is owned by amazon.
I just tried BookWyrm. It imported all my stuff from GoodReads. So far I'm loving it.
1Have you figured out how to get it to recommend you a book that you'd even consider reading? I sure haven't đł
0It doesn't do algorithmic recommendations like GoodReads or Storygraph. Its much more of a feed-based system of finding books via observing what others are reading. It takes some work to curate a following list that fits your tastes, but if you go to your favorite books and actually follow the people who feel similar to you, then over time you will start to get some wild recommendations by seeing the stuff they are picking up or marking as "to read". I much prefer it to algorithmic recommendations because it adds a human level of complexity - for instance, an algo isnt going to recommend a book that was published 40 years ago that has almost 0 online data about itself, but a person I really respect could say its one of their all-time favorites and now I have a new book that I literally never would have heard about anywhere else except for that one person.
2I may be strange on this, but I have never felt like I need automatic recommendations, and any I have gotten feel more like a nuisance.
I have my list of books on BookWyrm and sometimes I look at it and go like "oh I wonder what this author has been up to" and I look it up, or I participate on some online discussion about what people have read and if something sounds interesting I add it to my BookWyrm list.
I've also added a couple of books from people I follow there, who have interest in common but sometimes add this entirely unexpected book and I get to explore it.
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Bookwyrm is a great project, can recommend it.
1To be honest, I freaking love bookwyrm so much. One of my favorite ways to burn time online is to find books that come across my feed that are missing info like cover art, description, etc. and to fill it all in. I've spent hours doing this and it feels so cool, like I'm actually part of maintaining the system.
Also, Ive found that the people on Bookwyrm tend to like books that I really love that are also potentially kind of niche, so Ive found a lot of really great book recommendations that I never would have found from Goodreads or an algorithm.
1I've been using StoryGraph since it came around and really enjoy it. I've looked at BookWyrm, but I haven't considered switching yet.
The article mentions the WaPo connection to Amazon and its board, as they should, but I'm surprised to see this particular topic there, too.
This particular paragraph is disingenuous in its characterization of what's going on with Reddit, though:
There was also a concern that any major changes to the platform could scare people away. One former employee compared Goodreads to Reddit, an 18-year-old internet forum where users are revolting because of modifications to the site. âPeople feel like they canât anger the community,â the former employee said.
1Thanks for the BookWyrm recommendation, looks interesting. I have tried LibraryThing before, but it wasn't quite what I was looking for. I started building my own Goodreads alternative years ago since I couldn't find anything existing that suited my needs, but unfortunately didn't ever have the time to properly work on it.
0LibraryThing is owned by Abebooks which is owned by amazon. đ
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