Amazon acquires GoodReads

Wow!!! I'm not sure what to think of this.... Amazon has been expanding its footprint in the world of digital publishing rapidly and without any opposition so far. Kindle revolutionized the way the publishing industry used to work and turned the digital print market - till then a nascent industry on its head and made digital publishing a market worth billions.

The other competitors were slow on the uptake and Amazon gave them no quarter. The online juggernaut was on at Amazon and there was no stopping it. If GOOGLE is synonymous with SEARCH then AMAZON is the godfather of the publishing industry.

Now Amazon has acquired GoodReads a social networking forum of bookworms. People like me who read too much and like to share their love of books with all asked or unasked. One of the primary reasons I moved from Shelfari another social networking book site was - you guessed it.. - Amazon acquired it and suddenly all Shelfari users had to login using Amazon accounts. It synced with your Kindle the moment you switched to Amazon account and auto published all the books present on your Kindle at Shelfari...

This last part for me became a little too much to digest. I'll share what I want to and of my own will not because Amazon or Kindle wants me to. Is a little privacy too much to ask in this digital age? The Shelfari login for those users who did not want to use Amazon account was buried under multiple clicks making life difficult for the users. It was either go Amazons way and get an Amazon account or don't login to Shelfari at all. All this made me look for alternatives and I landed up at GoodReads a couple of years back only to find that Amazon has followed me here too...

With the Shelfari experience fresh in my mind, I am as I said earlier not sure what to think of Amazon acquiring GoodReads. Has the time come for me to move on from GoodReads too?