This just in.  Amazon is buying Goodreads.  We’ve been reading a couple articles published today about the purchase.  One on NYDailyNews and one on GeekWire.  We also read the Press Release on Amazon.

On GeekWire, it says:

Amazon.com is purchasing the San Francisco book social network Goodreads for an undisclosed price, adding a new chapter in the Seattle retailer’s quest to get closer to its core customers: book lovers.

…

The Goodreads team will remain in San Francisco where the company was founded seven years ago.

For those who follow Amazon.com history, you may recall that this marks yet another acquisition of a book social network. In 2008, it , and with the purchase of Abebooks, received a stake in LibraryThing, a social network for book lovers that now has more than 1.6 million members. (We have an email into Amazon to see if they still have an ownership stake in LibraryThing).

Here is the message from Otis Chandler:

When Elizabeth and I started Goodreads from my living room seven years ago, we set out to create a better way for people to find and share books they love. It’s been a wild ride seeing how the company has grown and watching as more than 16 million readers from across the globe have joined Goodreads and connected over a passion for books.

Today I’m really happy to announce a new milestone for Goodreads: We are joining the Amazon family. We truly could not think of a more perfect partner for Goodreads as we both share a love of books and an appreciation for the authors who write them. We also both love to invent products and services that touch millions of people.

I’m excited about this for three reasons:

1. With the reach and resources of Amazon, Goodreads can introduce more readers to our vibrant community of book lovers and create an even better experience for our members.
2. Our members have been asking us to bring the Goodreads experience to an e-reader for a long time. Now we’re looking forward to bringing Goodreads to the most popular e-reader in the world, Kindle, and further reinventing what reading can be.
3. Amazon supports us continuing to grow our vision as an independent entity, under the Goodreads brand and with our unique culture.

It’s important to be clear that Goodreads and the awesome team behind it are not going away. Goodreads will continue to be the wonderful community that we all cherish. We plan to continue offering you everything that you love about the site—the ability to track what you read, discover great books, discuss and share them with fellow book lovers, and connect directly with your favorite authors—and your reviews and ratings will remain here on Goodreads. And it’s incredibly important to us that we remain a home for all types of readers, no matter if you read on paper, audio, digitally, from scrolls, or even stone tablets.

For all of you Kindle readers, there’s obviously an extra bonus in this announcement. You’ve asked us for a long time to be able to integrate your Kindle and Goodreads experiences. Making that option a reality is one of our top priorities.

Our team gets out of bed every day motivated by the belief that the right book in the right hands can change the world. Now Goodreads can help make that happen in an even bigger and more meaningful way thanks to joining the Amazon family. (And if you want to be part of this, please check out our  for open positions. We’ve got a lot of hires to make!)

This is an emotional day for me. Goodreads is more than a company to me – it’s something that Elizabeth and I created because we wanted it to exist. Since then it has grown a lot and become a place we love working at, full of incredibly smart and passionate people who also believe in our mission. I feel a little like a college graduate – happy to come to this milestone, nostalgic for the past amazing seven years, and incredibly, incredibly, excited for the future.

Otis

Our team isn’t sure what to think of this just yet.  Being acquired by Amazon could be a good thing, but only time will tell.