Comments on: How about a "books I've read lately" feature on the profile page?

How about a "books I've read lately" feature on the profile page?

jbickers — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 14:38:41 -0800

I've got a feature that I'd LOVE to see added, largely driven by the number of "I just finished reading this, what should I read next posts" ... a set of fields on our profile pages where we can add a book that we've recently read/enjoyed (perhaps by ISBN?), followed by a comments box. That way, members could build their "reading histories" over time, and they'd be available to the rest of the community. I realize there are plenty of stand-alone sites that do just this, but I'd love to see it integrated into MeFi, simply because I'd be very interested in checking in from time to time to see what certain posters are reading these days. We all kinda get to know each other over time, and there's an unusually high percentage of very literate people on this site. (Forgive, please, if this has been requested before.)

By: monju_bosatsu

monju_bosatsu — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 15:24:14 -0800

A better--and easier--way to do this would be to allow the options of displaying from sites like allconsuming and last.fm on member pages. I seem to remember something similar with flickr being in the works.

By: monju_bosatsu

monju_bosatsu — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 15:28:15 -0800

... displaying feeds ...

By: jbickers

jbickers — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 15:33:33 -0800

Or, upon thinking about it further, what about books.metafilter.com?

For instance, I've just finished re-reading "The Great Gatsby," and am dying to talk about it. But I don't have a question per se, and it's not "best of the web," so there's no real place to start a discussion about it.

Anyway, just a thought.

By: Partial Law

Partial Law — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 15:37:45 -0800

For instance, I've just finished re-reading "The Great Gatsby," and am dying to talk about it.

You know who else wanted what he couldn't have?

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 15:37:53 -0800

There used to be a site called Bookfilter that was just for this sort of thing. Perhaps you could drop the guy a note?

By: Effigy2000

Effigy2000 — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 15:39:09 -0800

jbickers: "... a set of fields on our profile pages where we can add a book that we've recently read/enjoyed (perhaps by ISBN?)"

A nice idea, but why do we need specific fields per se? Why not just devote a section of your user page profile to books you've read and liked and include links to them, or something similar?

jbickers: "For instance, I've just finished re-reading "The Great Gatsby," and am dying to talk about it. But I don't have a question per se, and it's not "best of the web," so there's no real place to start a discussion about it."

Seems to me MetaChat is what you'd want then.

By: jbickers

jbickers — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 15:39:47 -0800

There used to be a site called Bookfilter that was just for this sort of thing. Perhaps you could drop the guy a note?

Yeah, I'm guessing that there are tons of sites that do something like this (librarything comes to mind). I'd just love to see it integrated into this particular community.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 15:43:27 -0800

I'd just love to see it integrated into this particular community.

Yeah I hear you, I'm not sure if it's clear that Bookfilter was a spin-off MeFi site with MeFites contributing to it, not just a random book discussion site. In any case it's quite defunct, but I'd be interested to see it back around again since I liked it when it was there.

By: blue_beetle

blue_beetle — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 15:49:09 -0800

Metafacebook

By: mendel

mendel — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 15:52:59 -0800

I was surprised that there was no Metafilter group at LibraryThing.

That seems like a good place to have such a thing, though.

(I haven't gone and created one on the off chance that I've just missed it.)

By: acro

acro — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 16:16:58 -0800

I'm looking forward to the 'nexus home library catalog' (private beta) projects

By: Dave Faris

Dave Faris — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 16:21:06 -0800

Quasi-related, I've always thought you could tell a lot about a person by perusing their Amazon wishlist.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 16:21:17 -0800

Actually a "metafilter reviews" page has been talked about before. It would be a cash cow for matt, so I don't know why it's not been done yet...

By: isopraxis

isopraxis — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 16:26:53 -0800

I like the idea of MeFiReviews. Books could be a subcategory, but there are many other things I'd like to filter through the Filter.

By: acro

acro — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 16:29:12 -0800

dove.metafilter?

By: vacapinta

vacapinta — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 17:15:21 -0800

There used to be a site called Bookfilter that was just for this sort of thing. Perhaps you could drop the guy a note?
posted by jessamyn at 3:37 PM on April 28

Not really. Bookfilter was focused on literary posts or things related to books. It was never really a "Hey! I read this book. Lets discuss it."

By: snsranch

snsranch — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 17:19:07 -0800

delmoi, I remember that (MeFi Reviews) and would love to see it happen. I'm consistantly disappointed by sites like Rottentomatoes. Not that they suck, but they sure aren't MeFi quality.

This only problem that I can foresee is how to set it up. Reviews with sidebar discussion? Rules to keep us from mucking it up?

I know this was previously discussed, but it's worth thinking about. (It would be awesome!)

On preview, what isopraxis said too.

By: yerfatma

yerfatma — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 17:59:04 -0800

0451191153
0751538914
0385420536
1879967111
0529064634
0874869226
0352339705

By: vacapinta

vacapinta — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 18:14:40 -0800

Dude, if you're reading all those other books, you really don't need 1879967111. You could write it yourself.

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 18:30:50 -0800

I've got a feature that I'd LOVE to see added, largely driven by the number of "I just finished watching this, what should I watch next posts" ... a set of fields on our profile pages where we can add a porno that we've recently viewed/enjoyed (perhaps by UPC?), followed by a comments box. That way, members could build their "viewing histories" over time, and they'd be available to the rest of the community. I realize there are plenty of stand-alone sites that do just this, but I'd love to see it integrated into MeFi, simply because I'd be very interested in checking in from time to time to see what certain posters are viewing these days. We all kinda get to know each other over time, and there's an unusually high percentage of very perverted people on this site. (Forgive, please, if this has been requested before.)

By: orthogonality

orthogonality — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 18:42:29 -0800

"Cat Maiden Upskirts: The Meow-Mix Mix"

By: Rhomboid

Rhomboid — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 18:49:54 -0800

You do realize your profile page has a freeform text field, right? Because you can just put your booklist there now, if you want.

By: Alvy Ampersand

Alvy Ampersand — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 19:29:13 -0800

Of the whopping three post on my blog, two are "Books/Comics I've Read" lists - well, books and comics I've remembered to add. Feel free to check them out!

*Pastes Adsense code into source, begins planning retirement, rubs palms together, cackles wildly*

By: gsteff

gsteff — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 00:01:46 -0800

OMFG, I would love a BookFilter that was integrated into MeFi proper. PLEASE DO THIS. This is one of the few communities on the internet whose members are both numerous and serious enough to make this work. The feature that jbickers describes would also rock- AskMe is my #1 source for book reccomendations.

By: chrismear

chrismear — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 00:12:51 -0800

What we really need is the MetaFilter External Authentication API, so that anyone can build these toys for the community to enjoy.

By: BigSky

BigSky — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 00:32:19 -0800

I know this is the kind of thing that when it gets started there's no real good place to call halt, but I too would love to see something along those lines here.

The user base here is very literate and the book recommendation threads on askmetafilter are pretty strong. Just like askmetafilter is superior to Yahoo Answers because of the user base, a book filter here would have a similar advantage.

Well, that's assuming there is a similar interest level like there was for askmetafilter.

You got my vote.

By: Doofus Magoo

Doofus Magoo — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 03:32:30 -0800

Following up on delmoi's broadening of the request to encompass a reviews.metafilter.com, that could also be a repository for travel/restaurant information that's so frequently sought on AskMe.

By: amberglow

amberglow — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 10:45:27 -0800

yup-- reviews.metafilter.com -- for media, travel, products, etc....

By: ClanvidHorse

ClanvidHorse — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 12:55:19 -0800

This all sounds good. I would certainly appreciate the above mentioned kinda features.

By: Rock Steady

Rock Steady — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 13:35:33 -0800

Filters I Would Like:

- Review
- Travel
- Chat
- Event (essentially for non-web Projects: plays, concerts, shows, etc.)
- Deal (tagline: we have cameras)

kthxmatbi

By: ibmcginty

ibmcginty — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 16:50:06 -0800

I am unconvinced that reviews.metafilter.com would work-- I don't see that the community here is big enough to sustain restaurant and travel reviews. Am open to being argued with/proven wrong about this.

Books, OTOH, I think would work, and be awesome.

By: BigSky

BigSky — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 18:40:21 -0800

There's a difference between a review filter and sharing lists of favorite media. I don't have any strong feelings one way or the other about reviews.

What I think is a good idea, if there is enough community interest to ensure participation, is profiles having listings of favorites. It would be a little like Library Thing except the focus is on the discussions in metafilter and askmetafilter. If someone's comments interest you, then you could look at what they are reading, have read, perhaps movies, whatever. I think that's what jbickers is talking about.

By: BigSky

BigSky — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 21:49:44 -0800

Hmmm.

The BlueOrganizer extension is growing in popularity. If not them, someone will create a product where that sort of functionality will become a common element in many people's browsers. The rss feed off of that to the profile page would pretty much do it.

You couldn't have conversations about anything, but if you were interested in what people had read, or what CDs they wanted to buy, there wouldn't be anything more to it.

I don't know if this is the kind of site where people would invest the time to work on their profile pages like that. It seems like something people would be more likely to put on a blog or a myspace page. We'll see.

By: roll truck roll

roll truck roll — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 23:42:23 -0800

Um, has someone gone and made that Librarything group yet?

By: yeti

yeti — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 07:01:09 -0800

Metafilter's own Metacritic. That would be great if there was some way to control "Your Favorite Band/Book/Movie Sucks" noise.

By: drezdn

drezdn — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 08:57:10 -0800

I think books.metafilter would be interesting if it worked like ask or metafilter with posts consisting of reviews, discussions, or people seeking recommendations.

If it were to exist though, I would hope it would be moderated so things like "Kilgore Trout sucks" would be removed but "I don't like Kilgore Trouts novels because they are too whimsical" would stay.

It might be slightly more useful, more likely to bring in other mefites if it was something like media.meta and consisted of reviews, discussion and recommendation requests in music, moves, and books.

By: jbickers

jbickers — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 11:24:34 -0800

Um, has someone gone and made that Librarything group yet?

Yup.

By: tula

tula — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 12:26:29 -0800

I'm in on the librarything group. They do the book site thing pretty well, so unless a within-Metafilter feature would do a better job, I'm inclined to let LT handle my books management. Now, a insider's city guide or reviews, that might be nice, especially since we're so spread out geographically and so many of the AskMe questions/answers could fit under that umbrella, and the only other city guide type sites I know that have decent information -like tripadvisor- are written by visitors and tourists rather than people who live there. MetaPlaceRaves or whatever would be great. Or music, I'm hopeless at finding new music.