Amazon Becomes a Social Reading Player

With Amazon's recent purchase of Shelfari, the future of the various social networking avenues for book lovers remains unclear. I'm a Goodreads man myself, as are most (according to Tim O'Reilly's telling graph), but Amazon could tilt that balance with a creative integration of Shelfari into its massive empire.

Another wrinkle: Amazon recently purchased Abebooks, who, in turn, own a piece of Librarything which further poises Bezos & Co. for domination in the social reading space. Goodreads remains the indie choice among the bunch and still the favorite.

Stay tuned.