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> By joining Amazon, Goodreads has accelerated their mission to delight customers with the help of Amazon’s resources and technology. Seriously, reading the di

> By joining Amazon, Goodreads has accelerated their mission to delight customers with the help of Amazon’s resources and technology. Seriously, reading the diarrhea vomited out by corporate PR shills nowadays seriously makes my teeth hurt. Do those people actually believe the bullshit they're spouting to the general public?

CrampusDestrus 3y ago
Amazon's resources and technology to display a static web page with a few low resolution images and a bunch of text.
garciansmith 3y ago
I wish news organizations would not give direct quotes when pure marketing nonsense was written. Just say something like "Amazon did not give us any substantive comment on the matter."
- batch12 3y ago
  I suspect it's a case of one hand washing another. They publish the fluff so they can be on the list of publications that get early dibs on 'news' that will drive engagement.
  - cratermoon 3y ago
    Don't forget the Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post. If they didn't give Amazon's side unquestioned, someone would be in trouble.
    - chipotle_coyote 3y ago
      The article’s entire theme is “was this purchase a good thing” and the subhead (“raises questions about [Goodreads’] longtime owner”) strongly implies the answer is no. I get why “well, journalists never critically report on the people who directly or indirectly sign their paycheck, dontcha know!” is such a popular take (particularly in cynical times with a skeptical crowd), but the history of news shows journalists reporting on things that could potentially piss off their owners pretty repeatedly, and the Washington Post reporting on things relating to Amazon doesn’t seem to be a serious exception. Amusingly, I just did a DuckDuckGo search on “washington post reporting on amazon”, intending to see if there were critical takes on said reporting, and what came up instead was: a plethora of WaPo articles with headlines like “Bernie Sanders launches investigation into Amazon labor practices”, “Lawmakers: Amazon may have lied to Congress”, “Perspective: How Amazon shopping ads are disguised as real results”, “FTC sues Amazon over Prime enrollment without consent”, “Amazon’s OSHA data shows its workers injured at higher rates than rival companies”, and “Tour Amazon’s dream home, where every appliance is also a spy”.
- deanCommie 3y ago
  I wish people also learned some critical reading: Amazon spokesperson Ashely Vanicek said that "<exact quote>" Is journalistically neutral. Amazon was asked about what we wrote. Here's what they said. You decide if you believe us, or Amazon. I see nothing wrong with this, unless the headline of this story was "Goodreads' accelerated mission in delighting customers with the help of Amazon’s resources and technology.”
  - archgoon 3y ago
    [dead]
  - unethical_ban 3y ago
    I see both peoples' points. Yes, journalism can objectively report the fact that Amazon said something. I think it is also fair to wish for informationally bankrupt statements to be called out by decent institutions. As you say, the headline suggests an opposition to Amazon's position, so maybe that's enough.
    - CaptainZapp 3y ago
      I really liked Hunter S Thompson's gonzo journalism take in that regard. It went along the lines: "The defence secretary said that we're fighting a righteous and humane war in Vietnam. The defense secretary is full of shit!" Nowadays they send their spokes drones and have the spin masters cook up even more ridiculous shit. Hunter S Thompson (RIP) must be spinning in his grave. e: added quotes around Hunter's fictious statement
  - cratermoon 3y ago
    It's not "Is journalistically neutral". It's being a purveyor of propaganda. Just like when journalists quote cops using CopSpeak. It lets the interested party defined the terms of the debate. By constraining the terms, it can become literally impossible to say some things.
    - deanCommie 3y ago
- RoyGBivCap 3y ago
  Devil's advocate: What if they gave a comment the publication didn't like (but readers would) and hid it? Publishing what was said is more "just the facts, please" than editorializing the response, as shitty PR-speak as it is.
- monktastic1 3y ago
  Not giving substantive comments makes it sound more honorable than what was actually said. I actually prefer them exposing the nonsense that corporations spew, so that their disingenuity is in plain sight and on the record.
tracerbulletx 3y ago
No. Most of the political and corporate apparatus communicates as an occupation, what they believe has no correlation with what they say.
Lolaccount 3y ago
I've found that "delight customers" is the key phrase. Just write a script that excludes any articles which mentions that phrase for a better life. That's been a pretty reliable indicator over the last decade.
- hospitalJail 3y ago
  Nah, better marketers know to pretend to be a frustrated human who relents because 'this is the best we got and everything else sucks even more'.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  I agree. There are a handful of red flag phrases that can reliably predict whether or not you're being sold a bill of goods. "Delight customers" is one of them. As soon as a company says anything like that, I know to avoid them like they're radioactive.
- JKCalhoun 3y ago
  Greetings, fellow customer!
bacchusracine 3y ago
>Do those people actually believe the bullshit they're spouting to the general public? With the kinds of salaries they make? Absolutely! I'll believe your butt makes chocolate ice cream for the kind of money those people make ^1. ^1 testing the theory on the other hand...not so much.
hospitalJail 3y ago
At least Apple's marketers will say things like "While I don't like that they do X, they are the best at Y, and they need to do X for your safety" You get what you pay for.
JohnFen 3y ago
> Do those people actually believe the bullshit they're spouting to the general public? I don't know. but I do know that the best marketers I've worked with all had one trait in common: they believed their own bullshit. One told me outright that the first thing he has to do when taking on a new account is to convince himself that the story he needs to tell is true because that stops him from having to lie.
- CatWChainsaw 3y ago
  That's remarkably honest of him.
goodthrowreads 3y ago
hi i worked at goodreads and this comment is giving me gell mann amnesia. ask any engineer there, this is basically true in the sense that amazon drastically professionalized what had been a deeply fly by night company. the way software was written and product cycles were done pre acquisition was hilariously bad. the reason goodreads still looks so ancient today is that even a decade of amazon engineers trying to salvage it haven't been able to climb out from under the mountain of tech debt the company accrued pre acquisition. amazon should have just scrapped and rebuilt the entire thing after the acquisition. or just not bought it and finished building their competitor to it that was in progress. either would have been more successful what they did.
- ims 3y ago
  Seems like the existing user base, reviews, and lists were the main source of value. I don't want to be "that guy" but I'm curious what made it so hard to rewrite some or all of the CRUD aspects?
Nemo_bis 3y ago
That sentence means: "By joining Amazon, GoodReads was not sued to death by Amazon for using book catalog data from Amazon".
CatWChainsaw 3y ago
On one hand I hate it, but on the other hand since I use the presence of even a single buzzword as a snake-oil alarm, I'm willing to ignore a few false positives in exchange for remarkably less technological bullshit in my life. Compare that to astroturfing. Bill Hick's opinion is very relevant for them especially.

CrampusDestrus 3y ago

Amazon's resources and technology to display a static web page with a few low resolution images and a bunch of text.

garciansmith 3y ago

I wish news organizations would not give direct quotes when pure marketing nonsense was written. Just say something like "Amazon did not give us any substantive comment on the matter."

batch12 3y ago
I suspect it's a case of one hand washing another. They publish the fluff so they can be on the list of publications that get early dibs on 'news' that will drive engagement.
- cratermoon 3y ago
  Don't forget the Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post. If they didn't give Amazon's side unquestioned, someone would be in trouble.
  - chipotle_coyote 3y ago
    The article’s entire theme is “was this purchase a good thing” and the subhead (“raises questions about [Goodreads’] longtime owner”) strongly implies the answer is no. I get why “well, journalists never critically report on the people who directly or indirectly sign their paycheck, dontcha know!” is such a popular take (particularly in cynical times with a skeptical crowd), but the history of news shows journalists reporting on things that could potentially piss off their owners pretty repeatedly, and the Washington Post reporting on things relating to Amazon doesn’t seem to be a serious exception. Amusingly, I just did a DuckDuckGo search on “washington post reporting on amazon”, intending to see if there were critical takes on said reporting, and what came up instead was: a plethora of WaPo articles with headlines like “Bernie Sanders launches investigation into Amazon labor practices”, “Lawmakers: Amazon may have lied to Congress”, “Perspective: How Amazon shopping ads are disguised as real results”, “FTC sues Amazon over Prime enrollment without consent”, “Amazon’s OSHA data shows its workers injured at higher rates than rival companies”, and “Tour Amazon’s dream home, where every appliance is also a spy”.
deanCommie 3y ago
I wish people also learned some critical reading: Amazon spokesperson Ashely Vanicek said that "<exact quote>" Is journalistically neutral. Amazon was asked about what we wrote. Here's what they said. You decide if you believe us, or Amazon. I see nothing wrong with this, unless the headline of this story was "Goodreads' accelerated mission in delighting customers with the help of Amazon’s resources and technology.”
- archgoon 3y ago
  [dead]
- unethical_ban 3y ago
  I see both peoples' points. Yes, journalism can objectively report the fact that Amazon said something. I think it is also fair to wish for informationally bankrupt statements to be called out by decent institutions. As you say, the headline suggests an opposition to Amazon's position, so maybe that's enough.
  - CaptainZapp 3y ago
    I really liked Hunter S Thompson's gonzo journalism take in that regard. It went along the lines: "The defence secretary said that we're fighting a righteous and humane war in Vietnam. The defense secretary is full of shit!" Nowadays they send their spokes drones and have the spin masters cook up even more ridiculous shit. Hunter S Thompson (RIP) must be spinning in his grave. e: added quotes around Hunter's fictious statement
- cratermoon 3y ago
  It's not "Is journalistically neutral". It's being a purveyor of propaganda. Just like when journalists quote cops using CopSpeak. It lets the interested party defined the terms of the debate. By constraining the terms, it can become literally impossible to say some things.
  - deanCommie 3y ago
RoyGBivCap 3y ago
Devil's advocate: What if they gave a comment the publication didn't like (but readers would) and hid it? Publishing what was said is more "just the facts, please" than editorializing the response, as shitty PR-speak as it is.
monktastic1 3y ago
Not giving substantive comments makes it sound more honorable than what was actually said. I actually prefer them exposing the nonsense that corporations spew, so that their disingenuity is in plain sight and on the record.

tracerbulletx 3y ago

No. Most of the political and corporate apparatus communicates as an occupation, what they believe has no correlation with what they say.

Lolaccount 3y ago

I've found that "delight customers" is the key phrase. Just write a script that excludes any articles which mentions that phrase for a better life. That's been a pretty reliable indicator over the last decade.

hospitalJail 3y ago
Nah, better marketers know to pretend to be a frustrated human who relents because 'this is the best we got and everything else sucks even more'.
JohnFen 3y ago
I agree. There are a handful of red flag phrases that can reliably predict whether or not you're being sold a bill of goods. "Delight customers" is one of them. As soon as a company says anything like that, I know to avoid them like they're radioactive.
JKCalhoun 3y ago
Greetings, fellow customer!

bacchusracine 3y ago

>Do those people actually believe the bullshit they're spouting to the general public? With the kinds of salaries they make? Absolutely! I'll believe your butt makes chocolate ice cream for the kind of money those people make ^1. ^1 testing the theory on the other hand...not so much.

hospitalJail 3y ago

At least Apple's marketers will say things like "While I don't like that they do X, they are the best at Y, and they need to do X for your safety" You get what you pay for.

JohnFen 3y ago

> Do those people actually believe the bullshit they're spouting to the general public? I don't know. but I do know that the best marketers I've worked with all had one trait in common: they believed their own bullshit. One told me outright that the first thing he has to do when taking on a new account is to convince himself that the story he needs to tell is true because that stops him from having to lie.

CatWChainsaw 3y ago
That's remarkably honest of him.

goodthrowreads 3y ago

hi i worked at goodreads and this comment is giving me gell mann amnesia. ask any engineer there, this is basically true in the sense that amazon drastically professionalized what had been a deeply fly by night company. the way software was written and product cycles were done pre acquisition was hilariously bad. the reason goodreads still looks so ancient today is that even a decade of amazon engineers trying to salvage it haven't been able to climb out from under the mountain of tech debt the company accrued pre acquisition. amazon should have just scrapped and rebuilt the entire thing after the acquisition. or just not bought it and finished building their competitor to it that was in progress. either would have been more successful what they did.

ims 3y ago
Seems like the existing user base, reviews, and lists were the main source of value. I don't want to be "that guy" but I'm curious what made it so hard to rewrite some or all of the CRUD aspects?

Nemo_bis 3y ago

That sentence means: "By joining Amazon, GoodReads was not sued to death by Amazon for using book catalog data from Amazon".

CatWChainsaw 3y ago

On one hand I hate it, but on the other hand since I use the presence of even a single buzzword as a snake-oil alarm, I'm willing to ignore a few false positives in exchange for remarkably less technological bullshit in my life. Compare that to astroturfing. Bill Hick's opinion is very relevant for them especially.