Amazon Set to Close Deal on GoodReads

The Deal as Seen by Forbes.com

Well, I see that Amazon has made another strategic move in the company's quest to control the world of publishing and book selling.  Although it doesn't seem to have generated a whole lot of talk, Amazon (relatively quietly) announced yesterday that it had acquired GoodReads, the popular social network for readers, authors, and publishers.

Terms of the deal were not announced, but it is expected that the sale to Amazon will close by the end of June.  The folks at GoodReads seem exited about it, especially as to how the site might work within the Kindle format.  There is little doubt that this is a good deal for both parties.  GoodReads gets more exposure by being linked to Amazon's massive number of users - and Amazon gains the type of social network it would have had, otherwise, to create on its own.

Barnes and Noble, on the other hand, is the loser because it will no longer be linked automatically by GoodReads to all the books that are discussed and reviewed on that site.  When the deal closes, those clicks will take a GoodReads user to the Amazon site instead.

So very quietly, Amazon has made another direct hit on Barnes and Noble's website traffic and further consolidated its own attempt to some day monopolize book sales.  God help us.