[karaterobot]

I'm glad another site for book lovers exists, and I wish you well!

But I think it's sad that Librarything has such poor marketing and branding that nobody ever thinks "well, there already is a better, cooler replacement for Goodreads, and it doesn't cost anything". It's been around for 17 years, has 2.6 million users, and very few people know about it.

[pessimizer]

I always thought Librarything was also bought by Amazon.

later: According to some pretty stale info on Wikipedia, Abebooks bought 40% of Librarything in 2006, and Amazon bought Abebooks entirely in 2008.

edit: https://blog.librarything.com/2008/08/abebooks-news-the-scoo...

https://www.librarything.com/topic/152033

> At the same time, it's well known that Amazon has an indirect but real stake in LibraryThing—they bought Abebooks, who were our first minority partner. People keep reporting that Amazon has 40%. That's simply not true—it fails to take account of our second funder, Bowker. (I remain the majority; I can't say how the rest divides up.) But this certainly muddies the message. For what it's worth, I want LibraryThing to make more money, and therefore my, Bowker and Amazon's stake to be worth more and more, but with Amazon now holding 100% ownership of BOTH our competitors (Goodreads and Shelfari), we can hardly do so without emphasizing what sets us apart.

[pavon]

I did not know Amazon had purchased Abebooks. Damn our antitrust regulators have been asleep for a long time.

[lancesells]

Yeah, this really bothered me when I found out about it. I still use Abebooks but would happily switch to an alternative if there's one out there.

[tren]

Try https://www.betterworldbooks.com/explore/explore-used_books - most of the time the cheapest price at Abebooks points at them anyway

[arawde]

I think the reason is that LibraryThing is significantly less UX-friendly than Goodreads. I use both; I use Goodreads to track what I consider "personal" reading, and I use LibraryThing to track what I consider "technical", but the big reason I have it broken down like this is because LibraryThing is just not as friendly to a user as the alternatives.

[kwertyoowiyop]

Agreed. The name "LibraryThing" is like a people-repellent compared to "GoodReads." Names matter.

[BeetleB]

LT user for over a decade. I'll definitely stick to it as long as it maintains its feature set.

One of the nice things about it is its lack of decent AI (and they're open about it). They're not trying to hit those kinds of user engagement metrics.

[mrmuagi]

> sad that Librarything has such poor marketing

I did not know it even existed, I have imported all my books into it and will wean myself of Goodreads.

[mistrial9]

thx! - all I knew before today was to avoid Goodreads at all costs! my "cookie counters" went off the charts at Goodreads - I literally will not open a page there for any reason now.. same with that ubiquitous picture-collecting site.. pinterest.. toxic to me now.