one of my favorite things about netflix, other than the obvious boon the service itself has been to me for going on six years, is the more fledgling community ‘notebook’ feature (formerly ‘my two cents’). being able to fire off two-sentence opinions on what i’ve seen is a great way not to forget to share my thoughts on something; a good conversation starter or substitute for the friends i don’t see as often. this way they still get to know what i would have told them if we’d had a conversation about it that week. plus, it’s a nice exercise in condensing and maximizing ideas into short form.
of course the other great part is reading them from my friends, but unfortunately most of them are not as diligent about it as i am. the one big exception being spencer, who i think, like me, sees it as a sport. and as someone whose opinion i respect, writing notes to and reading notes from someone like him has given a whole new layer of value to my netflix visits.
so of course i was more than willing to sign up when he found a similar system for books, and now i have a fun shelfari widget down there on the right. it’s set up to show two books; the last one i’ve finished, and the one i’m currently reading. the beauty part is, you can mouse over the bottom one and see my review in a popup screen. i’m going to try to apply the same system i do to the netflix ones — two sentences max to capture the essence of my thoughts. short and sweet. not to say i won’t still write the occasional longer, fleshed out post on here about a book i feel strongly about, but this is a nice, simple way to get thoughts down and share them easily.
in that spirit, if you’re reading this and are into either books or movies and haven’t yet, may i offer a warm invitation to be my netflix or shelfari friend and get in on the micro-discourse?