Social Networking for the Bookish Type

Goodreads is a community just like every other online social network.

What differentiates Goodreads is their focus on books. Even though MySpace and Facebook both have a few different widgets you can add to your account which enable you to display and review books in much the same way, Goodreads can also be added to your MySpace and Facebook profiles so you can share your bookshelf with friends in those communities too. You can find these features on the right side of the screen in the “my account” view.

I like being able to peruse the reading lists of my friends and favorite authors to see what they like and plan to read, and of course, it’s always fun to see who hated Great Expectations as much as I did.

I especially like the feature that enables you to compare your library to another member’s with the click of a button to see what reads you have in common and how the other member rated the same books. That’s pretty eye-opening.

For those with blogs, Goodreads provides an HTML widget that can be customized and added to your blog pretty easily. Look for the “widget” button on the right side of the screen in the “my account” view.

Watch for this network to be gobbled up by somebody who wants all that juicy marketing scoop.

But before you do anything else, come be my friend on Goodreads.