As much as I love books, I'm calling shennanigans on yet another pointless niche social networking site. In the last few weeks I've received invites to a movies-only networking site and a "give your opinion on merchandise" site. What next? A "What's your favorite tissue paper" social networking site? (Send out invites to everyone in your address book now!)

greg, i have to tell you that you are wrong. i don't think it's accurate to call this a networking site. the "friends" functionality is necessary not to meet new people but to be able to see all your friends' books and what they think of them. comparing books to toilet paper isn't very fair; all the friends of mine who have spent serious time on the site also spend serious time reading every day, and most of us are anal, OCD types eager to list every book we own or are reading or have read or would like to read, etc etc etc -- and find that there's nothing quite so cool as observing how our friends have the same obsessive tendencies about something we all love so much.

to be sure, if cataloguing your stuff isn't at all interesting to you, book-lover or no, the site may not appeal.