Shelfari
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| Subsidiary | |
| Industry | Online book community |
| Founded | October 11, 2006 |
| Headquarters | Seattle, Washington, U.S. |
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Key people
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Josh Hug, Co-founder/CEO Kevin Beukelman, Co-founder/Chief Architect Mark Williamson, Co-founder Dave Hanley, VP Marketing Ian Patterson, Lead Designer |
| Parent | Amazon.com |
| Website | www.shelfari.com |
Josh Hug, Co-founder/CEO
Kevin Beukelman, Co-founder/Chief Architect
Mark Williamson, Co-founder
Dave Hanley, VP Marketing
Shelfari was a social cataloging website for books that got merged with GoodReads. Shelfari users build virtual bookshelves of the titles they own or have read, and can rate, review, tag, and discuss their books. Users can also create groups that other members may join, create discussions, and talk about books, or other topics. Recommendations can be sent to friends on the site for what books to read.
Shelfari was launched on October 11, 2006. In February 2007, Amazon.com invested $1 million in Shelfari, and moved to acquire it a year later in August 2008.
As of January 2016, the site hosts a notification announcing "Shelfari is merging with Goodreads".
As of June 2016, the site is decommissioned (all links redirect to Goodreads). Despite mention of a merger, users complain that the most important Shelfari features have not been merged (primarily that the comments system doesn't allow detailed discussions of books, and background information on each book's main characters has been discarded).
Shelfari was founded by RealNetworks alumni Josh Hug and Kevin Beukelman (both software developers), and Mark Williamson (who never joined the company full-time) under the name Tastemakers, Inc., along with designer Ian Patterson. Tastemakers sought to create a social networking service that met the needs of avid readers. This strategy may have mirrored a trend during this time period of creating niche social networks such as social movie site Flixster. Once Shelfari received its first equity fund raise in early 2007 the company grew to five employees, including software developer Kevin Durdle, designer Timothy Gray, and VP of marketing Dave Hanley. In August 2008, the company was acquired by Amazon.com, also a Seattle, Washington company, and the team was integrated into the book technology group.
Shelfari continued to function as an independent book social network within the Amazon.com family of sites until January 2016, when Amazon announced on Shelfari.com that it would be merging Shelfari with Goodreads and closing down Shelfari. To prepare Shelfari members for the move, Amazon posted on Shelfari.com a prominent announcement stating, "IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: Shelfari is merging with Goodreads. Learn More", as well as links to a page titled "Read the FAQ", instructions to "Download your data in a CSV file" (whose linked page is titled "Export Everything",), and instructions to "Move to Goodreads" (whose linked page is titled "Export Invitation"), along with two months to migrate their Shelfari content to Goodreads. Although Shelfari discussion threads will not be migrated (as Amazon would need permission from all conversants in order to do so), users were advised: "you may save your own data for your own records".
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Wikipedia