Delicious Library: Still pointless

So, about 1.32 years ago I got a copy of Delicious Library as part of the MacHeist bundle. And I thought, "Wow now I can keep track of all my books, music, and DVD's." And dutifully started scanning them all into the Library with my built-in iSight camera, just like a good little Shipley-ite. Then when the world-renowned David Pogue reviewed DL, I thought, "See? It's cool to spend hours scanning things!" Also like David Pogue, I got a bit bored with scanning things after a while.

Then came the real boredom: what to do with the product after I'd scanned everything in. I could look at my books, but for some reason I never think "I'd like to read a book. I don't want to go to my bookcases, look at my actual books, and choose one to read. So I'll go to my iMac, look at pictures of the covers of my books (except for the ones that are out of print or aren't carried by Amazon) and choose one there. Then I'll go to my bookcases and pick it up. The same goes for music and DVD's. I have a database for music. It's called iTunes, and it does a much better job of picking up all my album covers than DL/Amazon.

"But wait!" I hear you screaming, almost rabidly, "What about checking books out to your friends! Now you know exactly who has your books, movies, or DVD's, and when they're due back!" Yes, I could do that, but tell me, what kind of looks to do you think you'd get if you said, "sure you can borrow that book, but first I need to create an account for you in my library software, check it out to you, and assign you a due date" I tried it a couple of times. Mostly the response I got was "Umm, never mind. I guess I don't want to read it all that much anyway." And nothing says "you are a true friend that I love, respect and value" like a "hey, you know that book you borrowed from me? It's two days late" email. So if DL is meant to keep all your books/music/videos/games in your library and alienate people, then the checkout feature does a great job!

At the time they were promising DL 2.0 "any day now™" And now, they're promising version 2.0 "any day real soon now!™" So we may soon get to see what features will be in version 2.0 that make it more worth my time than version 1.6.

But I'm not holding my breath.