This week, Amazon.com acquires female-founded book ratings-and-recommendations engine Goodreads.
By Angie Chang (Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Women 2.0)
Freelance journalist Elizabeth (Khuri) Chandler co-founded Goodreads with her husband in 2007. The San Francisco-based GoodReads is a free “social cataloging” website for book lovers. The ratings and recommendations site for books rivaled Amazon.
So it can’t be much of a surprise when this week, Amazon announced acquiring the reviews-and-ratings startup for an undisclosed amount of money. GoodReads had raised $2.75 million in funding over the years.
In a company blog post addressing the acquisition, Goodreads CEO and co-founder Otis Chandler writes “what integration with Kindle would you love to see the most?” and shares a picture of the Goodreads co-founders with Kindles and Goodreads logos.
Congrats to Elizabeth Chandler at the Goodreads team on the acquisition and the new journey at Amazon!
Women 2.0 readers: What do you think of GoodReads, Amazon and the acquisition news this week? Let us know in the comments below.
Angie Chang is Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of Women 2.0, a media company offering content, community and conferences for aspiring and current women innovators in technology. Our mission is to increase the number of female founders of technology startups with inspiration, information and education through our platform. Previously, Angie held roles in product management and web UI design. Angie holds a B.A. in English and Social Welfare from UC Berkeley. Follow her on Twitter at @thisgirlangie.
