Books!

For this assignment I started a Goodreads account, since I already have one with LibraryThing. I never really got into LibraryThing, so when I tried to log on to compare it with Goodreads, I couldn't remember my username and password. I hate it when websites make your sign-in name different than your email address. I can, after all, only remember so much. Anyway, I do use the iread application of Facebook on which you can imput your books, rate them, etc. etc. and I found it more convenient to use than LibraryThing, since I check Facebook for other things (obviously).
Already I like Goodreads better than LibraryThing. It seems easier to navigate, I don't think you ever need to pay for it, and it has a lovely little feature where you record when you read a book. The website is set up more like other social networking sites, so it is a little more intuitive as well. Plus, the overview mentioned that I could add its application to my Facebook account, which I might do to replace iread, since it is certainly better than that.
Another great thing about Goodreads is that it has a little events page that shows you author events in your area. Authors are on both Goodreads and LibraryThing, but it would be interesting to see which is the preferred method of reaching out to readers.
LibraryThing does have a couple of features that, as far as I know so far, Goodreads does not. One is that it offers a lottery of advance reading copies. While a great idea, this doesn't interest me very much because your chances of getting the book aren't very good and because I already get advance copies from working in a bookstore. Another feature is the option to link out to purchase a book, which I don't really see as necessary, since I know where to buy books.
The biggest problem with either of these sites is that I don't know anybody on them. Unlike Facebook and MySpace, where they catch on because everybody's talking about them, the only people I've heard talk about these are the people I work with here in the library. Many of the things LibraryThing and Goodreads offer are offered just as adequately by Amazon - reviews by readers, recommendations based on what you've read/bought/looked at. So I'm interested to see how quickly the book networking catches on.