Like many others I’m a sucker for good lists. Especially on topics I’m interested in and today I checked out two new list-related websites.

First up was Listible which stores lists of all different types like 200+ Massive Multiplayer Online worlds to free website counters. You can register for free and create your own lists, add items to existing lists, vote on lists, tag lists and/or leave comments about lists. The UI is friendly and some of the right things (like the rating) are AJAX-powered.

This evening I signed up for Listal which has the following pitch for me to copy/paste:

At Listal you can catalog all your DVDs, books, music, games or discover new ones. Manage and share wish lists, tag, rate and review your stuff. Meet new people and form groups to discuss your favorite Movies, music, games or books.

We have a tab delimited list of most of our DVD collection so I decided to see if there was a way to import the list. There is something called DVD Profiler, but I didn’t see a link explaining what that was or how to get my tab delimited DVD file into that format. Could have Googled it but passed.

I added 106 DVDs through the search, about 1/4 the size of our current collection. For some searches like Star Trek I was able to check multiple items and submit so it wasn’t quite a one at a time deal. This is a picky one but when entering DVDs like “Threes company” returned no results but “Three’s company” did so their search isn’t factoring in plurals.

I did see an item on loan and borrowed list. That could come in handy for folks who loan out items from their collections.

Two features I’m not seeing which are pretty much deal breakers are an export function and a way to make my list private and not public. Do either of these two functions exist? This especially sucks for those with a large collection of DVDs, games, music and books if there was no way to export the data.

Also there is no way that I saw to add your own Amazon referral code to the items, so you are building and sharing your collection on the web (and it will be spidered) so that others can search and buy through the Listal Amazon affiliate code from your collection and tags. You provide the lists, they provide a little bandwidth and storage and they make the affiliate revenue. Good for them, not so good for you. A revenue share with the people maintaining and sharing these lists would be a nice future feature. At least a 50/50 split on amazon affiliate links showing.

You can’t even put links in your profile or on your own page, it just strips out the HTML. Weak.

If Listal still sounds interesting enough to check further, then click here to join Listal and automatically be added to my friends list. That is, if you would like to be my Listal friend of course. Listal buddies for life, come on. Don’t worry my feelings won’t be hurt if you don’t bother.

Seriously, what else will Listal do for you? I haven’t really checked out the social functions other than you can search each other’s lists and tag your collection, so feel free to chime in via the comments area on what you find/experience. Especially if there is something really cool and/or useful that I missed.

I did see a group function (create/join) and tag clouds but frankly I’d rather trade both those functions for some sort of affiliate revshare and data export function. Will this have either of these someday? If not this review will probably be the last time I’ll use this service. I look forward to hearing reader thoughts on these two sites or about sharing collections on the web in general.

Update 4/1/06 8:52pm PST: Fixed the link to listible.com per comment below.

Did this post make you go hmm?

Maybe Related Posts (plugin generated)

• Checking out Shoposphere
• Rough Underbelly more style than substance
• Does Amazon data collection go too far?
• Create your own to-do lists online
• Looking forward to playing Super Mario Galaxy and other items on the to-do list
• Google green, My Library, Reader search