How to discover new books, movies or other media you're prone to like?

April 29, 2009 2:40 PM

Are there similar sites such as last.fm and the likes for other media types? I'm thinking sites which can recommend e.g. books and movies based on what I've recently read or watched. I'd prefer non-commercial sites, thus eliminating amazon.com and sites which recommend other titles based on what other users also bought together with a selected book/movie. Thanks.
posted by kissan to media & arts (9 comments total)

LibraryThing makes recommendations based on your manually entered book collection
posted by casaubon at 2:45 PM on April 29 [2 favorites has favorites]

For books: LibraryThing

For Films: NetFlix? Criticker? (spelling a bit off with that one)
posted by pharm at 2:46 PM on April 29

BookArmy, Shelfari and Goodreads are three of LibraryThing's competitors. There's another one I just heard about, but the name escapes me right now.
posted by box at 2:49 PM on April 29

Netflix is too good to be excluded. I sympathize with your aversion to digital salesmen, but in the tradition of deconstructing your question, note that there's not a clear "abnormal profit margin" where they win more by recommending cheap movies [like the mattress salesman who pushes the store brand]. Postage, labor, storage, that's gotta be the main costs.

And, a year ago I could walk into a Blockbuster and have nothing to check out, whereas I have 150 DVD's in my queue now.
posted by gensubuser at 4:02 PM on April 29

MovieLens.
posted by camcgee at 4:36 PM on April 29 [1 favorite has favorites]

Criticker.com for movies. You rank movies you've seen & the site will give you ratings you might give to other movies, either old movies or new releases.
I find it's pretty helpful, especially if you rank a lot of films first.
posted by Laura in Canada at 5:54 PM on April 29

jinni.com for movies
posted by alitorbati at 11:37 PM on April 29

Jinni.com
posted by alitorbati at 11:38 PM on April 29

Listal for pretty much everything.
My page is at http://radsqd.listal.com/
posted by radsqd at 8:34 PM on April 30