Goodreads has been around since 2006, and in 2006 it was pretty amazing. But fourteen years later, it hasn’t changed much. This is a little surprising and I sort of feel like someone has just forgotten about it. I thought I would help out a little by coming up with some suggested improvements for Goodreads.
Shared Shelves
I do a lot of buddy reads, especially my friend Kelli, we actually are starting a whole TBR of books to read. It would be great for both of us to be able to add books and have the list on each of our shelves.
Sub-Shelves
I am one of those people that loves sub-folders, so of course, I want sub-shelves. For example, I might have a general romance shelf and then sub shelves for things like steam level, trope, rom-com. I could go on but I won’t, I think you get my point.
Decent Recommendations
Have you looked at your Goodreads recommendations page recently? Maybe it’s just me but it is pretty terrible. There is maybe once book on the entire list that I would consider reading. Come on you’re owned by Amazon how can you not have a better recommendation algorithm.
Polls
It would be great if I could poll my friends for what to read next or if should read the book or listen to the audiobook. In general, I think Goodreads misses out on allowing you to interact with friends, and polls would be a simple way to do this.
What are some Goodreads improvements you’d like to see?
Oh, but you can do a shared bookshelf for a group… I’ve added books to a shared bookshelf for the Big Book Summer Reading Challenge group. And I think I’ve seen polls as well – but only on groups.
But I don’t want to have to greater a group. I’d like it to be more like interest where I can invite a friend to add to a shelf I already have.
Not sure how you’d do that, but I bet you can!
I agree with your point about shared shelves and recommendations! The recommendations I’m getting now are so bad and poorly tailored!