Goodreads doubles membership despite Amazon controversy

The social media reading website Goodreads angered many earlier this year when they became affiliated with Amazon, but the company recently announced they doubled their membership in 11 months.

Goodreads recently announced that it had doubled its membership, jumping to 20 million members from 10 million 11 months ago.

Despite a furor in the literary world when the social media reading website Goodreads was acquired by Amazon, Goodreads has doubled its membership in 11 months, from 10 million to 20 million, according to the site.

When Amazon became affiliated with the website in March, many in the reading community were angered, with some vowing to close their Goodreads accounts. 

“Too bad,” a commenter named Wendi wrote on the site at the time. “Another good independent thing bites the dust. Happy for you and the money you'll make off the cool thing you started; sad for me, and sad for the internet, which will soon be owned by Amazon and Facebook.”

Goodreads founder Otis Chandler said he saw three factors that led to the website’s increase in membership. The site has “a critical mass of book reviews,” he said in an interview with TechCrunch, meaning that chances are good a visitor will find a review for the title they’re looking for. Chandler said the site had also experienced increased visibility internationally and that the growth for mobile devices has been
 “explosive.”

Chandler told TechCrunch the site plans to offer versions of Goodreads that are tailored specifically to foreign countries soon.

TechCrunch writer Anthony Ha wrote that Chandler “expects that being owned by Amazon will also contribute to growth.”

The comments left on the Goodreads blog post which announced the membership growth were almost uniformly congratulatory.

“Congratulations,” a user named Sarah wrote. “Wonder how many new members joined after the Amazon acquisition compared to the previous 6 months. Looks like maybe Amazon was a good thing after all."

Meanwhile, a user named Jeanine posted, “Thank you so much for a great job – I recommend you continually to my friends! Here's to many more years and many, many more members!!!”

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Goodreads doubles membership despite Amazon controversy
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2013/0724/Goodreads-doubles-membership-despite-Amazon-controversy
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe