Goodreads’ reign over the world of book talk might be coming to an end

#1

Post by J253 » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 10:33 AM UTC

Goodreads’ reign over the world of book talk might be coming to an end
newstatesman.com

Re: Goodreads’ reign over the world of book talk might be coming to an end

#2

Post by garmaine » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 10:44 AM UTC

Is this a hit piece? I’ve never once had a problem with goodreads. Am I alone?

Re: Goodreads’ reign over the world of book talk might be coming to an end

#3

Post by dontremeber » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 11:21 AM UTC

garmaine wrote: post #2

Is this a hit piece? I’ve never once had a problem with goodreads. Am I alone?

Not sure but I do know that when I first found out Goodreads was owned by Amazon I was very surprised and began to look at Goodreads (perhaps unfairly?) under a very different light. I was suddenly underwhelmed with what it was.

I remember thinking surely someone like Amazon could build something better than this. Not sure what I suddenly expected it to be, exactly, but it just felt like the whole UX was something from a decade ago.

Sure it’s great for keeping track of books I’ve read and whatnot but I’ve tried to use it to dig deep and find new authors and books similar to my tastes but didn’t find a lot of success.

In the music world I’ve had a ton of success finding new artists on Spotify’s “Fans also like” section. And I can keep following one artist to another to another. Books are obviously different in that it takes quite a bit longer to learn whether or not you like a new author than it does to listen to a new artist’s top few tracks, but still...after trying a few new authors and books, I never found that magical recommendation engine I was hoping for.

Re: Goodreads’ reign over the world of book talk might be coming to an end

#4

Post by pasabagi » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 11:41 AM UTC

garmaine wrote: post #2

Is this a hit piece? I’ve never once had a problem with goodreads. Am I alone?

I wouldn't say I hate goodreads, but it is probably the worst-designed website (with some tough competition) that I semi-regularly use. The book categories are nonsensical, the books that take up most real estate are either random, or selections of books so famous you've definitely read/seen them before. More minor annoyances are that the reviews smell like astroturfing, and the 'quotes' thing is totally inane, and it's cluttered while remaining information-sparse.

Re: Goodreads’ reign over the world of book talk might be coming to an end

#5

Post by DeusExMachina » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 11:42 AM UTC

garmaine wrote: post #2

Is this a hit piece? I’ve never once had a problem with goodreads. Am I alone?

I don't find it a particularly usable or appealing website, but I have been using it for a long time and I never hated it as the article implies.

Re: Goodreads’ reign over the world of book talk might be coming to an end

#6

Post by Hokusai » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 11:45 AM UTC

> Instead, it has stagnated: Amazon holds on to an effective monopoly on the discussion of new books

This is the main point.

It is the same thing that Oracle purchasing MySQL. What once was a promising raising technology is nowadays stagnant. (Interest over time https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%...)

GoodReads could help to find better books to read. But, Amazon likes the current state where Amazon recommends the books that are good for their business and not the best for the reader.

10 years ago, I would buy anything Amazon recommended on books. Nowadays, I do not use Amazon anymore as it just promotes books that, I guess, have larger profit margins or align better with Amazon strategy. It cannot be trusted as a recommendation engine.

Re: Goodreads’ reign over the world of book talk might be coming to an end

#7

Post by prepend » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 11:51 AM UTC

I have used goodreads since soon after launch. It’s probably the worst site that I use, but I prefer it’s benign neglect over the “improvements” made on the main amazon site.

I just use it as a list of books of I’ve read and am reading, and to see books that my friends are reading or have read.

It’s been funny to me that the search is horrible and seems to be something worse than just regexing a list of book titles. But I eventually find what I’m looking for. It’s sucked as long as I can remember.

The recommendations are also really bad, it has never recommended a book to me that I thought was interesting or I ended up reading. This is despite having over a thousand read and rated books from me. I’ve been waiting for them to be able to search all the books I don’t know and find one that I will like.

I kind of like the site as it is quaint, but functional. It’s like a library in that way.

Re: Goodreads’ reign over the world of book talk might be coming to an end

#8

Post by deadwing0 » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 11:56 AM UTC

garmaine wrote: post #2

Is this a hit piece? I’ve never once had a problem with goodreads. Am I alone?

I have never really been a fan. I use it mostly to discover new books and track my reading and goals, which seems to work just fine. However, the Android app, which I use the majority of the time, is pretty bad. The Home tab is blank, with only a search bar and a button to "find your friends." Seems odd for the app to start there. I guess they are trying to push the social media features of it? I'm not interested in that.

On my previous phone (iPhone 6s), the app seemed to be much better designed, though it has been a while since I have used it. Honestly, my biggest gripe is that it's owned by Amazon. I generally try to support smaller retailers when making purchases, and would love to find another service that helps me track my reading and discover new books.

Re: Goodreads’ reign over the world of book talk might be coming to an end

#9

Post by freddie_mercury » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 12:01 PM UTC

garmaine wrote: post #2

Is this a hit piece? I’ve never once had a problem with goodreads. Am I alone?

I've never had a problem.

It doesn't do a great job with recommendations but I don't really care. There are thousands of book recommendation blogs, lists, BookTube channels, etc.

I'm not sure why people think every site/app needs to evolve to engulf every tangential aspect of a given ecosystem.

HN can never make up its mind whether it likes distributed systems or not.

HN also loves the benign neglect of HN itself (formatting on mobile still broken after 20 years?)

Re: Goodreads’ reign over the world of book talk might be coming to an end

#10

Post by imglorp » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 12:03 PM UTC

Business opportunity here to replace this?

Start with some HN or Reddit style forum discussion code. Some income could come from affiliate links to indie booksellers. (Is there even infra for such a thing right now? Need to build that too?)

Edit, answering myself, this guy has some thoughts: https://tomcritchlow.com/2020/04/15/library-json/

Edit, as for the index corpus, the USLC does okay: https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/search?searchArg=0312937385&se...