Shelfari is the latest member of the Amazon.com family

Amazon just announced the acquisition of the start-up book sharing company Shelfari. They are on a roll with literary-related purchases, as just earlier this month, they bought AbeBooks, an online seller of rare and used works. Now, what makes this Shelfari purchase a tad more interesting is the fact that one of their main competitors is LibraryThing. And AbeBooks just happens to own 40% of LibraryThing. Keeping it in the family Amazon.

LibraryThing however, is not seeming to have that much respect for the Shelfari site. Just yesterday they wrote on their site that Shelfari is a “clone” and that it is “..somewhat less intellectual, less featureful”, among other zingers. And there they are practically cousins.