Shelfari
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| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Founded | October 2006 |
| Headquarters | Seattle, WA |
| Key people | Josh Hug, Co-founder/CEO
Kevin Beukelman, Co-founder/Chief Architect Mark Williamson, Co-founder |
| Industry | Online book community |
| Website | www.shelfari.com |
Shelfari is a social cataloging website. Shelfari users build virtual bookshelves of the titles they own or have read, and can rate, review, tag, and discuss their books. Shelfari was launched on October 11, 2006[1]. In February 2007, Amazon.com invested $1 million in Shelfari,[2] and moved to acquire it a year later in August of 2008.[3].
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[edit] Criticism
Shelfari has received bad press for its "Invite Friends" page. Jesse Wegman, writing in The New York Observer in October 2007, complained that because he had "accidentally failed to uncheck the approximately 1,500 names in my Gmail address book that Shelfari had helpfully pre-checked", the system caused invitations to be sent, contrary to his intentions but "ostensibly" from his own address, to his entire network of contacts.[4] In November 2007, Shelfari was accused of astroturfing by Tim Spalding, the creator of LibraryThing, a competing social networking book site.[5] In a comment on another blog critical of Shelfari (primarily criticizing the "invitations" system), Josh Hug, the CEO, blamed the astroturfing on an intern not knowing better, and said that it had stopped.[6]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Cook, John (2006-10-11). "Shelfari an online meeting place for bibliophiles". Seattle PI. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/288229_shelfari11.html. Retrieved 2007-06-01.
- ^ Arrington, Michael (2006-02-25). "Social Networking for Bookworms". TechCrunch. http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/02/25/amazon-invests-in-shelfari/. Retrieved 2007-06-01.
- ^ "Amazon Acquires Shelfari: Moves To Corner Book-Centric Social Networks". TechCrunch. 2008-08-25. http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/25/amazon-aquires-shelfari-moves-to-corner-social-book-space/. Retrieved 2008-08-25.
- ^ Wegman, Jesse (2007-10-23). "Caught in Shelfari's Sticky Web: No More Friends, Please!". The New York Observer. http://www.observer.com/2007/caught-shelfari-s-sticky-web-no-more-friends-please. Retrieved 2007-11-08.
- ^ Tim Spalding (November 13, 2007). "Shelfari Astroturfing: the Evidence". http://www.librarything.com/thingology/2007/11/shelfari-astroturfing-evidence.php. Retrieved 2007-12-27.
- ^ Michael Lieberman (November 12, 2007). "Shelfari Stumbles". Book Patrol blog. http://www.bookpatrol.net/2007/11/shelfari-stumbles.html. Retrieved 2007-12-18. The comment reads: "As for the astroturfing, that was an unintended work of an unexperienced but well-meaning intern who failed to make himself known as he commented on blogs. That was not our intent and we were unaware that was going on. It has stopped."
[edit] External links
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