Amazon.com Acquires Shelfari After Investing $1 Million Into Them Last Year
Amit Chowdhry | Tuesday August 26, 2008 | 1,421 views| 2 Comments
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) has acquired Shelfari, a social network for those who like to read. The acquisition amount was undisclosed. This acquisition takes place about a year after they invested $1 million in the company and about a month after Amazon acquired AbeBooks.com.
“As many of you may already know, Amazon has been a long supporter of Shelfari. They’ve worked closely with us as we introduced readers, like you, to our global community of book lovers. They’ve been there each step of the way as we brought forth new features, like the cool Facebook application and our virtual bookshelf,” wrote Josh Hug, co-founder of Shelfari on the Shelfari Blog. “And now Shelfari and Amazon will work hand in hand to continue to grow our dynamic community and create innovative new tools around the books you love.”
The acquisition is slightly controversial though. When Amazon acquired LibraryThing last month, they also gained 40% stake in LibraryThing. LibraryThing and Shelfari are intense rivals. Apparently the LibraryThing founder openly criticized Shelfari for spamming.
A similar company, LivingSocial created Visual Bookshelf. Visual Bookshelf is one of the most popular Facebook Applications with over 730,000 monthly active users. LivingSocial raised $5 million last month.
Related Link:
1. Shelfari
2. TechCrunch
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