Websites

getcloser.com
HMV bravely try to launch a social networking site, based on the USP of connecting your interests in music, film, TV, and the people who produce them.

It's not a bad concept, but the world hardly needs yet another social networking site, especially when there are already places that do similar concepts better -- e.g. sites that let you list your DVD collection, or YMDB (Your Movie DataBase) that allows you to list your personal top 20 movies, or various sites for music preferences, particularly last.fm.

There are a couple of other features HMV tries to offer in a USP-ish manner. The main one is a connections feature, which allows you to link artists, albums, films, etc, in a sort of brainstorm (or whatever the PC term is these days -- mindmap?) It's intriguing, but not always smooth to use and often downright awkward. Similarly, the displays of your films/albums/TV shows/actors/etc on your profile page is a nice concept, but seems difficult to manage and prone to suggest you like someone/thing much more than you actually do. getcloser can do other nifty things, like import information from iTunes to quickly fill out your profile, or use the things you're interested in to show categories in different font sizes... though my largest interest by far is "General" -- so that feature works well then.

If you're interested in investigating further, try the tour, or jump to my semi-complete profile (a link that wasn't easy to find -- another strike against it then).