A question I asked on Evil Avatar regarding a quality online game collection/wishlist database led to a comment that sparked a mass exodus of forum-goers to Listal for storing online listings of media collections and wishlists. It was at once strange and exhilarating to witness so many users immediately and unapologetically flock to a web 2.0 service. It made my heart sing.

The Listal interface is slick and clean, very user-friendly. In no time at all I was able to create a listing of my video game collection, accompanied by my gaming wishlist. I have a few minor grievances, which I outlined to Tom, the Listal developer, since he so graciously honored us with his presence in our thread, which we all found just a tad bit creepy.

The tagging leaves something to be desired. For instance, on my games landing page, all the tags and platforms displayed apply only to my owned games, and not my wanted or played games. Is it technically impossible for tags to cross these divisions within a specific grouping? I should hope not. Though, the same is true for all the groupings (music, dvds, books, etc.). The only way to display items that cross the divisions is to create a custom list. While the custom list functionality is cool, it doesn’t replace the ability to simply select a tag and see everything on your list corresponding to that tag. This is my biggest complaint.

Other than that, the site is sleek and silky. By far my absolute favorite collections site. I have a fairly sparse media collection as it is, so tracking my media really isn’t too terribly difficult. But I was previously using four different websites to do it, when now, it has all been merged into one effortless interface.

See, this is what I was talking about. I see the potential here. In a few years, this is simply how it will be done. And our kids will be just sitting there, jacked into their terminals, wondering how the hell their parents got through those depressing early 2000’s. And we’ll just snicker. And go back to our digging.