There's A Reason That No One in Publishing Bought Goodreads - The Digital Reader

A supply-side social reading community snapshot

"Goodreads was launched to encourage readers to show up and be bookish. The community formed around them.
Bookish, on the other hand, was launched in order to provide Hachette, S&S, and Penguin with “direct digital customer relationships”. The publishers got to build it from the ground up, and the manner in which it functions says a lot about the type of ”direct digital customer relationships” these publishers want
to have.
The thing is, they don’t actually want a relationship – not the relationship that James McQuivey (and I) think that publishers could benefit from."

There's A Reason That No One in Publishing Bought Goodreads - The Digital Reader