Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) is buying up another books-focused social network Shelfari, three weeks after it acquired AbeBooks, which holds a 40 percent stake in Shelfari’s main rival, LibraryThing. The Seattle-based startup was founded last year by Josh Hug, the former director of device engineering at RealNetworks (NSDQ: RNWK), and in fact Amazon was a seed investor in the company…it had raised a total of $1 million.
Interestingly, there is no love lost between the two rivals Shelfari and LibraryThing, as SeattlePI describes: LibraryThing founder Tim Spalding has called Shelfari a “bad actor” for engaging in what he called a massive campaign of “astroturfing,” the practice of planting positive comments about a service on blogs. It is likely that AMZN disposes of its stake in LibraryThing, or could conceivably be merged together.
{"source":"https:\/\/gigaom.com\/2008\/08\/26\/419-amazon-buys-another-social-books-site-shelfari\/wijax\/49e8740702c6da9341d50357217fb629","varname":"wijax_d1b0764ec99cf8358f72cb5a308de4c8","title_element":"header","title_class":"widget-title","title_before":"%3Cheader%20class%3D%22widget-title%22%3E","title_after":"%3C%2Fheader%3E"}