Amazon Acquires Shelfari: Moves To Corner Book-Centric Social Networks
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
"As many of you know, Shelfari is a LibraryThing clone. They aim at a slightly different segement of the market - they're "younger," somewhat less intellectual, less featureful, use only Amazon data, and focus on friend-to-friend connections and the aesthetics of the "shelf" rather than book-based connections and cataloging."
"... I have, quite frankly, the greatest contempt for them, and for what book-based social networking will become if they beat out LibraryThing ... Picture a boot stomping on a human face forever."
I especially liked this:
"Picture a boot stomping on a human face forever. Well, okay, not that. But picture the book social network wars ending with a site created by music people who probably wouldn't get that allusion, ..."
Seems to sum up the difference between the two. One is for book lovers; the other is for people who buy books.
They recently got acquired by Lulu and rebranded themselves as http://weread.com . check it out.