What's happened to Goodreads book pages?

[HareBrain]

They seem to have rearranged and resized all the information on each book page so everything is a lot bigger, meaning much, much more scrolling (at least on a computer screen/monitor). You only get 1-2 reviews per screen, and the series info and author's other books are at the bottom of all the reviews. Plus the preview function (the equivalent of Amazon's "look inside") seems to have vanished too. Is this because they've optimised it for phone screens, does anyone know? (But why only the book pages rather than "home" as well?) Whatever the reason, the added scrolling now threatens to make it too much hassle to bother browsing.

 

[M. Robert Gibson]

It seems OK to me

Have you somehow activated the mobile version on your desktop?

There's a link at the bottom of the page which says 'Mobile version' or 'Desktop version' depending on which version you're looking at

Goodreads Help

help.goodreads.com

 

[HareBrain]

Thanks -- I was on the desktop version, but it seems there's a difference between Windows 7 (where the problem is) and Windows 10 (I've just checked it on my W10 work laptop and it's OK).

There was a message a week or so back that said "We hope you like the changes to this page", so they've clearly done something.

 

[Elentarri]

Hideous isn't it? No one likes it. There is nothing but complaints about the lack of usability, the huge white spaces, infinite scrolling and removal of functions, repetitive pop-up options and clicking etc. This is the new version that they are rolling out. You can still get the old format on some really obscure browsers (e.g. vivaldi), but I don't know how long that will last.

I'm assuming the aim is to get rid of people that read books and replace it with toddlers who like pressing brightly coloured buttons (I'm waiting for the bingly bingly boop sound effects next!). I wonder if it has occurred to any of them that toddlers don't have money to buy books? I assume the whole point of the exercise is to get people to buy more kindle books (the huge BUY FROM AMAZON button under the cover is a dead giveaway). It obviously hasn't occurred to anyone at GoodReads (aka Amazon kindle division) that people who read books are more interested in reviews, specific edition, book information, and the social aspect of GR, rather than brightly coloured stars, giant covers and more advertising.

As far as I know there aren't any alternative sites that aren't just cataloguing sites with the odd review tossed in. If your main purpose of using GR is cataloguing then they might work for you.​

 

[HareBrain]

You can still get the old format on some really obscure browsers (e.g. vivaldi), but I don't know how long that will last.

Seems odd that it's still the old format on Chrome on my W10 laptop? What are you viewing it on?

 

[M. Robert Gibson]

You can still get the old format on some really obscure browsers (e.g. vivaldi)

That explains why it looked OK to me!

As far as I know there aren't any alternative sites that aren't just cataloguing sites with the odd review tossed in

Coincidentally, I've just posted a link to an article that provides 8 alternatives
A couple of them claim to have a social aspect, but that can only be tested by signing up.

Alternative Sites to Goodreads

Has anybody tried any of these other sites that are 'better' than Goodreads? https://www.makeuseof.com/goodreads-alternative-websites/ There are a couple a might try so I can catalogue music and films

www.sffchronicles.com

 

[tachyon]

It's very bad. Amazon has done similar things with the Kindle UI which no longer has an option to display a list of your titles, you're now forced to use the thumbnail icon view.

I assume it's to push more marketing, confuse users into clicking suggested titles instead of the books they already own, and other revenue-enhancing, user-hostile garbage.

Seriously considering putting an alternative OS on my paperwhite for this reason.

 

[Elentarri]

Seems odd that it's still the old format on Chrome on my W10 laptop? What are you viewing it on?

Firefox is my default browser. It has the new page.

 

[HareBrain]

This is interesting -- the book pages are now back to what they were before (on my Windows 7 Chrome anyway), but there's still a box asking for feedback on the new book page.

Has anyone else's reverted?

 

[Orcadian]

Agree the new version is huge, hideous, space-wasting and irritating to use. I gave them some feedback about it when it first appeared. The new version comes and goes. This morning Goodreads is showing the old version for me. I'm on W7 Pro using Firefox 70 and Slimjet 24 - aka 'Chrome lite'. Appearance is the same with both browsers.

 

[Elentarri]

I've had the old page back (with a notice in a greenish block at the top of the page) since yesterday. I hope there is someone on that side with enough brain cells to figure out that 99% of GR uses despise and loath their new page with an unholy passion!

 

[SilentRoamer]

They have reverted to the old style and layout - I have checked on multiple browsers across a couple of machines.

If anyone wants a new goodreads friend my GR handle is SilentRoamer.

 

[Elentarri]

Wonder how long the reversion to the old page will last.