Amazon Blocks Apple In Goodreads Purchase

Today it's become apparent that Amazon's recent purchase of the social networking website Goodreads has blocked another heavy hitter from teaming up. The report comes from a source who says none other than Apple was about to sign a deal with Goodreads for book recommendations with their iBooks program through Goodreads when Amazon showed up with a large sum of cash. This breakup is said to have knocked out a deal that was in the works for over a year.

The tip comes from an inside source speaking with the Wall Street Journal, saying Apple's plan was to have Goodreads data utilized inside iTunes. With Goodreads collection of data on book recommendations, the iTunes search interface would have become much more pointed in the way of customers finding books they'd find interest in based on their known interests. While the amount of cash exchanging hands in the deal between Goodreads and Amazon is not known in full, cash sums of over $200 million have been tipped.

While this report suggested that Apple "tried to stop the deal", it's also quite possible that the data mined by Goodreads could remain open for use by Apple in a separate deal once Amazon has finalized theirs. While it would seem that Amazon's own interests should remain squarely on their own library of media and their Kindle series of eReaders and tablets, when it comes to Apple, anything is possible.

Rumors continue to persist that Amazon is bringing their own smartphone to the market as well. With suggestions from Goodreads and their own extremely vast ocean of media continuing to expand, tablets may be too small a boat for Amazon to continue to row in through the rest of this year. The battle will continue one way or another!

[via Apple Insider]