<i>"... AbeBooks also owns 40 percent of LibraryThing (a social app for keeping track of your books and finding other like-minded book lovers). Whereas Amazon is an investor in Shelfari. Now Amazon will own a piece of both of those competing startups. ..."</i><p>This is a problem. Shelfari is second rate (spam merchants) while LibraryThing is very good. This is one of the disadvantages of investment from leaders in industries.
According to the article, Abebooks acts as a digital marketplace and does not hold its own inventory. If that is the case, why doesn't Amazon just go after booksellers themselves? Amazon offers the same service with a much wider audience, no?
this is good, I've ordered countless books through abebooks and just recently my citi card has begun charging an international transaction fee based upon abebooks being a Canadian company. perhaps now being owned by Amazon this won't happen anymore?