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Solidifying my dislike of Goodreads, I got my “year in books” email from them today and the first thing that loaded, at the top of the email, is an ad. For pill

Solidifying my dislike of Goodreads, I got my “year in books” email from them today and the first thing that loaded, at the top of the email, is an ad. For pillow cases. Folks, don’t do that

roughly 2y ago
Goodreads is owned by Amazon, and Amazon does not make products - Amazon makes product purchasing pipelines. Welcome to the funnel.
p3rls 2y ago
Once you're #1 on Google searches for half of the published corpus of humanity you stop caring about little things like that... Surprised storygraph even has that many users when they're nowhere on Google when I search books.
- Grimblewald 2y ago
  well, books and book related stuff tend to propagate more through word of mouth than direct search or advertisement.
  - p3rls 2y ago
    I mean I'd bet 90% of goodreads users are just googling quotes but yeah this girl got her timing right, Amazon bought goodreads and then just sat on it for like a decade... Storygraph would never ever be able to compete with goodreads on search, so they sorta had to pivot to winning on social and stickiness.
    - rafram 2y ago
      > this girl Seriously think about whether you’d refer to an adult male startup founder as a “boy.”
      - p3rls 2y ago
        [flagged]
        kashunstva 2y ago
        > ...fascist. Ad hominem comments are out-of-guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: > When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names.
        p3rls 2y ago
        Good heavens I'd have to create another account on an internet website! What horrors shall befall me next?
crossroadsguy 2y ago
It’s cyclical. Once the StoryGraphs and Hardcovers of today are big enough to be not bothered about some users with refined UX taste they’d do the same. This repeats.
- bwb 2y ago
  nah, not for them, passion runs StoryGraph and Hardcover. Amazon runs Goodreads and they are never around :)
  - elric 2y ago
    Passion used to run Goodreads. Then Amazon acquired it.
- HardcoverJeff 2y ago
  I don't think it is Amazon so much as sheer number of users. When you have 20K (like Hardcover), it is much easier to be focused on each of them (or at least small groups of them) than when you have 20 million - much less a few multiples of that number. As we grow, even Hardcover will have to evolve. This noted, I know this team (including myself, to be clear). Adam is truly focused on innovation and dev excellence. Ste, our lead designer, always has his eye on UI/ UX improvements and listening to what our users want/ how our users are using the site. As for myself, I'm the data/ social media guy - always looking to make our data as solid as possible and looking to use social media as effectively as possible. :)

Solidifying my dislike of Goodreads, I got my “year in books” email from them today and the first thing that loaded, at the top of the email, is an ad. For pillow cases. Folks, don’t do that

roughly 2y ago

Goodreads is owned by Amazon, and Amazon does not make products - Amazon makes product purchasing pipelines. Welcome to the funnel.

p3rls 2y ago

Once you're #1 on Google searches for half of the published corpus of humanity you stop caring about little things like that... Surprised storygraph even has that many users when they're nowhere on Google when I search books.

Grimblewald 2y ago
well, books and book related stuff tend to propagate more through word of mouth than direct search or advertisement.
- p3rls 2y ago
  I mean I'd bet 90% of goodreads users are just googling quotes but yeah this girl got her timing right, Amazon bought goodreads and then just sat on it for like a decade... Storygraph would never ever be able to compete with goodreads on search, so they sorta had to pivot to winning on social and stickiness.
  - rafram 2y ago
    > this girl Seriously think about whether you’d refer to an adult male startup founder as a “boy.”
    - p3rls 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - kashunstva 2y ago
        > ...fascist. Ad hominem comments are out-of-guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: > When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names.
        p3rls 2y ago
        Good heavens I'd have to create another account on an internet website! What horrors shall befall me next?

crossroadsguy 2y ago

It’s cyclical. Once the StoryGraphs and Hardcovers of today are big enough to be not bothered about some users with refined UX taste they’d do the same. This repeats.

bwb 2y ago
nah, not for them, passion runs StoryGraph and Hardcover. Amazon runs Goodreads and they are never around :)
- elric 2y ago
  Passion used to run Goodreads. Then Amazon acquired it.
HardcoverJeff 2y ago
I don't think it is Amazon so much as sheer number of users. When you have 20K (like Hardcover), it is much easier to be focused on each of them (or at least small groups of them) than when you have 20 million - much less a few multiples of that number. As we grow, even Hardcover will have to evolve. This noted, I know this team (including myself, to be clear). Adam is truly focused on innovation and dev excellence. Ste, our lead designer, always has his eye on UI/ UX improvements and listening to what our users want/ how our users are using the site. As for myself, I'm the data/ social media guy - always looking to make our data as solid as possible and looking to use social media as effectively as possible. :)