Between the Lines

Amazon acquires book community Shelfari

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Amazon has added another tuck-in acquisition: Shelfari, an online community for book worms. Shelfari is likely to be integrated into Amazon's services and continue to exist as a separate destination.

Amazon, which helped fund the social networking startup, now owns Shelfari and a stake in its primary rival LibraryThing (Techmeme). These sites allow friends to compile and share reading lists and book shelves. Richard MacManus gave kudos to Shelfari's user interface (right), but LibraryThing wasn't nearly as charitable. On its blog, Shelfari noted:

(Amazon has) worked closely with us as we introduced readers, like you, to our global community of book lovers. They’ve been there each step of the way as we brought forth new features, like the cool Facebook application and our virtual bookshelf. And now Shelfari and Amazon will work hand in hand to continue to grow our dynamic community and create innovative new tools around the books you love.

Terms of the deal weren't disclosed. The acquisition of Shelfari is Amazon's second in August. On Aug. 1, Amazon announced that it acquired AbeBooks, an online marketplace for rare books offered by independent booksellers. AbeBooks will operate as standalone site

posted by Larry Dignan
August 26, 2008 @ 4:00 am

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Amazon acquires book community Shelfari

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