Thursday, June 26, 2008

GoodReads confusion!

So I have had my GoodReads account. However, working on our books discussions here, I have been keeping up with my list better, looking at other reviews of some titles we consider. It is fun to be able to put a notch in your belt, and then think someone else may find some use in your review as well. However, while trying to "sign in" to my GoodReads account the other day, I was tricked!

There is a separate log-in from the normal sign in that is easy to misinterpret. It asks for your email address, which is your log in name for GoodReads anyway. It asked for my password like always, only it was asking for my EMAIL password, not my log-in password. For some STUPID reason, I wasn't thinking and just typed in the information. Bam! Suddenly I was experiencing a new feature of the site I hadn't stumbled upon before. I could see if friends of mine already had GoodReads accounts, and invite them to be friends. I wasn't sure WHY this was happening. Then I quickly realized, that an email was sent to everyone in my address book, inviting them to be my friend on GoodReads. OOPS. My husband was a little confused, but obliged. Since I used my home email address, it went to mostly people I know. However, I am afraid it also went out to old job prospects from like 7 years ago, not to mention family members, professors, teachers, and anyone who randomly had been added to my contacts list from over the maybe past 8 years. I am annoyed! I wouldn't normally just give out my friends' email addresses to random online sites. Nor would I try to get everyone I know to sign up for a book review site. Beware of the secret trap of GoodReads! I let myself fall right into it.

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