Great Details from GoodReads

While the huge impact of the social networking (site) phenomenon is impressive, what I find the most interesting these days are the properties that target niche audiences around passionate topics.

Category giants like MySpace and Facebook have more focused origins, but today their ubiquity is overwhelming. Nothing wrong with wide appeal, but it makes destinations like GoodReads stand out.

I love how GoodReads has captured book lovers' passion for books. And frankly, it's a lot about the little details. When someone friends me on Facebook I get an email from "Facebook" with the subject line that So-and-So has added me as a friend on Facebook. It never bothered me, in fact, it's nice and straightforward. But then I saw the ones from GoodReads (I'm not a member but one shared this with me). The email comes from your friend and the subject line reads, "Let's compare books". Same process, just slightly different approach.

I also saw the site's monthly newsletter and I love its take on personalization. More than the "Dear (insert name)" approach, and not so far as to give me that Big Brother feeling, GoodReads personalizes its email with the recipient's name, a reminder of the book that person last said they were reading and the question, "Do you have any new books to share with your friends?" How smart. Because if you're a book lover you know the next best thing to reading a great book is sharing it with someone else--anyone else.