I’ve just learned about an Amazon feature that, while not exactly new, is still relatively unknown and has not been officially launched.
I was browsing Dale Robert’s Facebook group today when someone mentioned Amazon Book Clubs. Kevin Maguire posted this screensnap while mentioning to him that the feature was new to him.
A little bit of Google sleuthing lead me to the relevant page on Amazon, but otherwise turned up little useful info (no one has reported on it yet). According to the FAQ linked at the bottom of the page, ABC is “a great way to help bring your discussions to life. Easily coordinate book selection, get notifications, and more, all in one place. Oh yeah, it’s also free. Because at Amazon, reading and discussing books is available for everyone.” (The self-congratulatory tone makes me want to vomit, too.)
There are apparently several thousand book clubs on the platform already; most are small and have only a handful of members, but the largest “featured” club had several thousand members.
It is hard to say just how many users have joined clubs, or how many clubs there are; there’s no single list, leaving you to search for clubs based on keywords. This is more or less privacy through obscurity, which sounds nice at first but will probably make it harder for potential members to find clubs they like.
On the plus side, Amazon does let you launch “private” book clubs where activity is shielded from public view, and is only visible to a club’s members and Amazon’s algorithms.
You have to be approved by an admin before you can join a private club, while a public club is open to all. That is quite a different definition of public and private from what FB uses. for its groups.
Speaking of which, its pretty clear that Amazon’s goal is to supplant FB groups as a discussion forum, and I hope they succeed. While I like the people I have met in FB groups, the platform itself is unpleasant to use. It was designed with data collection in mind, not user comfort, and Amazon could not possibly build something worse.
So what do you think of the new book clubs? Have you tried them yet?
How do they compare to the user groups on Goodreads?
You just finished reading Amazon Launches “Book Clubs” in Beta which was published on The Digital Reader.