The Social Software Weblog

throws down the gauntlet on all the “list your stuff” sites that are

cropping up, including LibraryThing and parts of CNET’s own GameSpot:


“I caught a glimpse of Swagroll…why

do I feel like I’m doing a lot of work I’ve already done elsewhere? ‘Add books, music, movies, and more to your own

swagroll’ — my god, do I have to? Again? Didn’t we do this already with

Delicious Monster? Haven’t I done this in

iTunes? Haven’t I done this on Amazon? On All Consuming? On Netflix? I have zero desire to do any of it all over again.

Zero… when do we get to the point where I get to own all of this metadata I’m spending so much time gardening in

some way that is open, standards-based, portable, and flexible so that I can plug it into these other services instead

of reinventing the friggin’ wheel in a new mandala every time? I know it’s hard. It involves companies (gasp) getting

together and playing nice and agreeing on things like standards and formats… and I just don’t care. Just get on with

doing it, already, because I’m tempted to go on strike until I’m given some alternative to creating and maintaining

hundreds of different locked-in profiles and datasets.”

Somewhere in there is a mission statement, and a fortune waiting to be made. Of course, Google is probably already building it.