shelfari-home Shelfari, the social networking site for book lovers, recently announced that Amazon is acquiring their site. This is not surprising as Amazon has a long history of working with Shelfari and invested $1 million in the site in February 2007.

Funny thing is that Amazon already has a social networking site, LibraryThing. Last month Amazon bought AbeBooks, a vendor of rare and used books from independent publishers. AbeBooks purchased a 40% stake in LibraryThing back in May 2006, so now Amazon owns part of LibraryThing, too.

Will Amazon merge LibraryThing and Shelfari? That waits to be seen since LibraryThing has openly criticized Shelfari and links to 51 posts of bloggers and journalists peeved at what Shelfari did to them – spamming, astroturfing, and putting out annoying press releases.

Will LibraryThing make an “honest woman” out of Shelfari? Possibly, still people are very loyal to their social networking sites and combining the two will upset users no matter what. Maybe that’s why Shelfari is asking users to chime in on how Amazon and Shelfari can make their site experience better. They've invited users to send them their questions, comments and suggestions to questions@shelfari.com. Great idea.

However, while I have a profile on Shelfari, I don’t use it much. I’ve found the bloggers I know use GoodReads more, and I like their features better. That''s where I'll stay for now unless Amazon (not Shelfari) can persuade me to make the switch.