22 ms·
If anyone at Goodreads or Amazon cares about the platform at all they have a funny way of showing it. It’s been stagnant and shoddy for years. Goodreads really
by habosa 3y ago
If anyone at Goodreads or Amazon cares about the platform at all they have a funny way of showing it. It’s been stagnant and shoddy for years.
Goodreads really has only one thing going for it: a pristine data set of books, authors, cover images, etc. There are so many other reading apps with a better UX but they are frustrating to use because the data is spotty or low quality.
- lancesells 3y agoI would argue they have the users, which is probably more important than pristine data.
- pavel_lishin 3y agoIt depends on what you use it for. I use it as a database of books I've read, and would liek to read, and sort them with tags. I could not give less of a shit about other users on the site.
- jsbisviewtiful 3y agoI recently moved over to StoryGraph. There are a few much better competitors at this point.
- habosa 3y agoObviously there are important network effects but the behavior of some Goodreads users is often a negative at this point (as the article talks about).
- KittenInABox 3y agoThere's no motivation for amazon to improve Goodreads. Why would they? The audience isn't going anywhere.
- zelphirkalt 3y agoEh, I have definitely used it less and less after A bought them/they sold out to A.
- kzrdude 3y agoI think it had already been going downhill before the acquisition
- Ruthalas 3y agoI am currently migrating to a Bookwyrm instance (a federated equivalent). It's not too bad, and can ingest your Goodreads export.
- ajsnigrutin 3y ago> Goodreads really has only one thing going for it: a pristine data set of books, authors, cover images, etc. There are so many other reading apps with a better UX but they are frustrating to use because the data is spotty or low quality. And spoilers in book titles (the goodread ones, not the physical books) Just a quick search for "a shocking twist" on goodreads finds many many books: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/198614844-the-perfect-family https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/198614844-the-perfect-fa... https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/137436113-1800198272-978-1800198272-a-book-the-family-across-the-street https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/137436113-1800198272-978... (i have no idea who/what inputed the title here...) and how "unputdownable" is a word... https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30514112-the-sister?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=QUX0u4UTxJ&rank=7 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30514112-the-sister?from... ... i'll see the twist coming, you just told me about it! ... Great, now I know that the killer (or whatever) they catch right before the end isn't the real one, and that there will be a twist in the last few pages.
- tedunangst 3y agoThe spoiler text is right there on the book cover?
- manojlds 3y agoAll the books have the twist mentioned on their cover image. For The Sister I googled to see its cover images.
- zozbot234 3y agoOpenLibrary offers that kind of dataset as a public service, on a non-profit basis. (Note: this has zilch to do with the whole controversy over them lending in-copyright books. The book metadata is an entirely separate thing and quite legal.)