Amazon has announced that it has acquired social media book recommendation and “social cataloging” site Goodreads. So far the money involved in the deal has not been disclosed, but commentators are speculating that the deal was worth several hundred million dollars, in large part due to Goodreads’ membership base of over 16 million active users.
This simply serves to highlight what we continue to drive home: On the internet, users are the currency of the so-called free services. Every time you sign up for a free services, you are adding yourself to the pool of user ‘stock’ that the service can then sell off for a handsome profit, while you never see a dime.
Goodreads was started by husband and wife team Otis and Elizabeth Chandler. While the service is generally considered to have been founded in 2007, the domain was registered in 2002, suggesting that it was a well-planned and well-executed business idea all along, rather than the sort of mom-and-pop feel-good service that some members may have viewed it as being.
Why does that matter? Well, because people may be less likely to sign up for something, the plan for which is actually “Sign up for our Silicon Valley start-up so that we can parlay it into a fortune by selling it to an Internet giant. And oh, by the way, it is the fact that we will have signed up so many people just like you that will lead them to paying us the big bucks.”
The Internet Patrol is completely free, and reader-supported. Your tips via CashApp, Venmo, or Paypal are appreciated! Receipts will come from ISIPP.
CashApp us
Venmo us
Paypal us
Then again, that may not matter at all to the vast majority of people.
And what’s in it for Amazon? The big data of all of those 16 million users. Their reading habits, their recommendations, and more. But beyond that, explains Jeremy Greenfield, of Digital Book World, “Many of Goodreads’s members are bloggers, reviewers, and what we call power readers, so in the industry it’s considered one of the best ways to promote books.”
The Internet Patrol is completely free, and reader-supported. Your tips via CashApp, Venmo, or Paypal are appreciated! Receipts will come from ISIPP.
CashApp us
Venmo us
Paypal us
