Goodreads is an Amazon company and "social cataloging" website founded in December 2006 and launched in January 2007 by Otis Chandler, II, a software engineer and entrepreneur, and Elizabeth Chandler. The site allows passionate readers to share what they are reading, rate books they have already read and list what they are considering next. They can do this publicly or among only a self-selected network of online friends. The site is also host to roughly 20,000 organically occurring online book clubs for every preference — from people interested in only Proust to those who prefer history and Tudor-period fiction. There are 314 clubs for paranormal romance fans alone.
In December 2007, the site had over 650,000 members[4] and over 10,000,000 books had been added. By July 2012, the site reported 10 million members, 20 million monthly visits, and 30 employees.[6] On July 23, 2013, it was announced on their website that the user base had grown to 20 million members, having doubled in close to 11 months. The website's offices are in San Francisco.
The theory behind Goodreads and its two main — albeit much smaller — competitors, Shelfari and LibraryThing, is that people will put more faith in book recommendations from a social network they build themselves. Amazon was convinced enough by the concept that it bought Shelfari in 2008. It also owns a portion of LibraryThing as a result of purchasing companies that already owned a stake in the site.
https://www.goodreads.com/
