WineThing?
No, I didn't build "WineThing." I did think about it once, shortly after LibraryThing was born. I figured I'd stick to books.*
But somebody did it, and did it rather well. The site is Cork'd (corkd.com). I was originally going to blog about WineLog, which also looks good, but I think Cork'd does it slightly better; it's certainly more elegant (than LibraryThing too). From the Alexa numbers Cork'd and Winelog look locked in battle; it's unclear who will hit the all important social-software "critical mass."** There's also a site called CellarTracker, which appears to hide a lot of functionality beheath the interface of a circa-1999 second-tier ecommerce site.
Cork'd doesn't do very much yet***, but it does what it does well, and easily. I'm hoping that, as they gain users, they discover the same data richness LibraryThing did. Right now, Cork'd only has manual, user-to-user recommendations. Since I have no friends on the site, I'll never get any. (Although can follow what I'm drinking via RSS!) I'm sure, when the data gets rich enough, they'll be able to generate good algorithmic ones as well.
BUT, wouldn't it be fun if you could link your LibraryThing and Cork'd accounts? Some very simple linking, and we could have "People who read The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy, Gentleman drink.. Gewürtztraminer!"
Sign up, and tell 'em you came from LibraryThing...
*Incidentally, dozens of people have told me they thought of LibraryThing too. The work is in the doing.
**It's strange they launched so close together. The same happened with LibraryThing and Reader2. Reader2 actually won, briefly, so while the social-software piling effect is important, functionality can trump it.
***Why can't I upload the label? Wineries would fill it with content in days.
But somebody did it, and did it rather well. The site is Cork'd (corkd.com). I was originally going to blog about WineLog, which also looks good, but I think Cork'd does it slightly better; it's certainly more elegant (than LibraryThing too). From the Alexa numbers Cork'd and Winelog look locked in battle; it's unclear who will hit the all important social-software "critical mass."** There's also a site called CellarTracker, which appears to hide a lot of functionality beheath the interface of a circa-1999 second-tier ecommerce site.Cork'd doesn't do very much yet***, but it does what it does well, and easily. I'm hoping that, as they gain users, they discover the same data richness LibraryThing did. Right now, Cork'd only has manual, user-to-user recommendations. Since I have no friends on the site, I'll never get any. (Although can follow what I'm drinking via RSS!) I'm sure, when the data gets rich enough, they'll be able to generate good algorithmic ones as well.
BUT, wouldn't it be fun if you could link your LibraryThing and Cork'd accounts? Some very simple linking, and we could have "People who read The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy, Gentleman drink.. Gewürtztraminer!"
Sign up, and tell 'em you came from LibraryThing...
*Incidentally, dozens of people have told me they thought of LibraryThing too. The work is in the doing.
**It's strange they launched so close together. The same happened with LibraryThing and Reader2. Reader2 actually won, briefly, so while the social-software piling effect is important, functionality can trump it.
***Why can't I upload the label? Wineries would fill it with content in days.
posted by Tim at 12:05 PM
4 Comments:
It would be wonderful if LibraryThing and Lists of Bests (http://www.listsofbests.com/) collaborated too, at least in the book lists. The various book lists there could use a better merging of editions, so you only have to enter your books once. Even better would be a way to import (or access) your LibraryThing catalog, perhaps specifying a tag like "read".
I'm not a wine drinker (seems almost blasphemy coming from a NZer!) but your linking wine drinking with certain book preferences as a fun statistic made me giggle.
I'm heading over to read your wine journal right this second, sounds liek it won't take me too long.
Hey! they have shirts...
I know. But will they have thongs?
(Call me crazy, but I don't think their company name would work on a thong.)
You may have seen, but corkd and magnolia are collaborating. Maybe you can figure out a way to hook together. Actually, doing something with magnolia like corkd does is almost a no-brainer for you, at least in terms of what it might be. (I'm sure you're busy enough that finding the time may make it a some-brainer.)
By the way, you may think corkd is more elegant than LibraryThing, but I have been really impressed with a lot of small details about LibraryThing. It's really a well-crafted service. Great work.
Hey, I was looking around here for a way to link to a book's catalog entry with an ISBN and I don't see it -- but there must be something. I was imagining http://librarything.com/isbn/0123456789 would redirect to the catalog page for that book. Is it somewhere?
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