'Review bombing' to ruin Goodreads, which was supposed to be responsible for the future of book reviews



Goodreads , a book review site operated by Amazon, has been pointed out that there is no way to stop spoofing accounts. It is pointed out that there are few ways to prevent it.

Goodreads, Amazon's website for book lovers, causes problems in publishing - The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/07/01/amazon-goodreads-elizabeth-gilbert/



Goodreads is a book review site that started its service in 2006, and publishes reading lists, book impressions, evaluations, and criticisms. The founders are Otis Chandler and Elizabeth Cooley, who met at Stanford University. Mr. Chandler is a descendant of

Otis Chandler, the editor of the same name who served as the top of the daily newspaper Los Angeles Times for 20 years.

The idea for Goodreads was inspired by Mr. Chandler when he was looking at a friend's bookshelf, and initially increased the number of users through word of mouth. In 2011, it acquired Discoverreads, which has a recommendation engine, and has reached over 5 million users.



In 2013, when the number of users reached 16 million, Amazon acquired Goodreads. Amazon had already acquired Shelfari, a book catalog site competing with Goodreads, in 2008. In 2016, Amazon integrated Shelfari into Goodreads.

But Goodreads itself has changed little since its acquisition by Amazon in 2013.

``Goodreads in its heyday helped sell books,'' said Maris Kreitzmann, an author and podcast about books. It was something, and Amazon bought it and it's over.'

The amount of Goodreads acquisition by Amazon is undisclosed, but it is rumored to be about 150 million dollars (about 21.6 billion yen). According to former Amazon employee Christy Coulter, there was a plan to use Goodreads data to enhance the functionality of Kindle.

However, in reality, Goodreads was old technology, data was not well organized, and it required a large amount of investment to keep it up to date. Also, since there is a possibility that users will leave if major changes are made, Amazon will continue to operate almost as it is without making a large investment in Goodreads.

As a result, one issue that has been left unaddressed is moderation. Goodreads has a person with the title ``Goodreads Expert'' who deletes posts that violate the rules, such as ``attacking the author regardless of the content of the book.'' However, since the management is done manually, it takes time to process.

Poor moderation has resulted in 'review bombing' from low-rated reviews. News site Time reports the existence of fraudsters who extort money from authors by 'review bombing'.

Goodreads' Problem With Extortion Scams and Review Bombing | Time

https://time.com/6078993/goodreads-review-bombing/



In addition, Elizabeth Gilbert, author of ' Eat, Pray, Love ', which was made into a movie starring Julia Roberts, has decided to postpone the publication of her new work 'The Snow Forest'. I'm here. This is because the stage of the work is the Soviet Union in the 1930s and the Russian invasion of Ukraine is underway, so some Ukrainian readers have strongly opposed it.



The backlash was expressed in the form of review bombing on Goodreads, with 'The Snow Forest' receiving a ton of one-star reviews on Goodreads. Goodreads is also used for marketing, and this was possible because it is a mechanism that allows reviews to be written before the book is published.

Jane Friedman, a consultant in the publishing industry, explained that even good publishers may present proposals for advanced reviews on Goodreads to create topics, and said, ``Goodreads is a powerful tool for publishers. It's a tool, but it's a real ' double-edged sword ' that can also be used as a weapon.'

Roxanne Gay, known for his works such as `` Bad Feminist '', tweeted that `` Goodreads really needs a mechanism to stop the bombing of one-star reviews '' in response to Mr. Gilbert's publication delay. increase.



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