Is Shelfari Amazon’s New Adoptee?

Rumors are floating around that Amazon may have invested approximately $1 million in Web 2.0 site Shelfari , scooping the site from other the noses of venture capital firms who were interested. If the rumors are true, this is Amazon 's first real dip of it's monstrous toes into the social shopping area.

The Seattle-based company is competing in an arena already populated by LibraryThing, and gives a nod to the competition by allowing you to input your book lists to your shelf from LibraryThing as well as Delicious Library, luring in the Macintosh community. Shelfari allows you to add your books, review them, link up to others who share your interests, start or join a book club based on your reading interests, and export your bookshelf to your blog, which is exactly what Shelfari is hoping that you'll do.

Even in beta, Shelfari is showing it's revenue-earning plans; linking exclusively to Amazon's catalog, the landing page for each book (or audiobook) includes a buy-now link to the corresponding Amazon product. Essentially, it makes Shelfari a large-scale Amazon affiliate with a fun and addictive social mash-up.

If Amazon did invest in Shelfari, it makes good business sense. LibraryThing was already partially acquired by AbeBooks , and while Amazon has a fairly large reviewing community, they don't have the same friendly Web 2.0 interface that Shelfari boasts. They'd also be investing in what could be one of the largest-scale affiliates out there if Shelfari takes off, ostensibly saving themselves in the long-term from having to pay out huge dollar amounts in affiliate earnings.

The crux for Shelfari earning power may be in the blog widget. Many blog owners are already running their own Amazon affiliate links, and giving up that earning potential to a third-party, no matter how attractive the widget, is going to be a hard sell.