You know, every once in a while you start to use a really great social networking tool, like LinkedIn or Facebook, and the time just flies by. Thanks wholly to Karen, I found a new one…GoodReads. There’s a lot to like.

I’m constantly on the lookout for a good tool for keeping an index of my personal library. For a while there I was using Delicious Library on my mac. It is a pretty sweet and full-featured app. If I had a web-cam on my computer I’d even be able to add books by simply taking a picture. Now if that’s not a cool feature, I don’t know what is. The problem is, I don’t have a web-cam, and there’s nothing all that rewarding about taking a picture of a book I just read.

Conversely, it is nice to be able to tell my friends about a book I just read. Using a tool like GoodReads allows me to keep my personal index, and also talk with friends (and non-friends) about the books I’ve read. There’s also this little side effect where I’m in a pseudo competition with my friends about how many books I’ve read. Though I probably shouldn’t start a competition like that…my friends are waaay smarter than me. 🙂

Of course, GoodReads has all the standard social networky features that we’ve all come to expect. It’s still new, though, so don’t expect all the bells & whistles just yet. At times it’s still a little buggy, especially in Safari on my mac. (Side note: why do websites have to use non-standard buttons? The ones built in to the browsers/OSes are nice, and they always work perfectly.)

Anyway, check out GoodReads. Check out what I’m reading, then start an account for yourself.