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About MediaLib

In November of 2024 I found myself looking for a way to track all the tv shows, anime and movies I had watched. I'm getting older and there are some top tier miniseries I watched on a random weekend in 2018 and totally forgot about. Im sure of it.
I checked out the existing services and really didn't like any of them. The best was letterboxd, but its just movies.

There are some similar attempts. But they look and feel more like a developers weekend project and require technical knowledge like self hosting. I wanted a real world solution that everyone can just use and has the UX of 2025.

So I decided to build it myself.

The Vision

  • Track any media type in one place - books, movies, TV, games, podcasts, music, even YouTube videos... why not?

    If I make a "summer todo list" why should I put my books onto goodreads and my games onto backloggd? What a mess.
  • No second class media types.

    I don't want MediaLib to be behind in features to singular focused solutions. The goal is not to force everything into one mold to make the site make sense.
    If a certain feature only makes sense for books or games, I will add it. For example if gamers like to add their achievements in a game, I wont deny it becuase it doesnt make sense for everything else.

    I want MediaLib to be as good at book tracking as goodreads and as good at movie tracking as letterboxd and as good at anime tracking as myanimelist.
    Better actually.
  • Discover unique connections between titles and creators that other platforms miss.

    The more I think about this, the more potential I see in unique discovery and trivia in MediaLib. When I check out "The Dark Knight" why isnt there a related section on imdb with the other movies of the Nolan trilogy? And the other Batman movies? And the Gotham Tv show? And the comics?

    Book authors are sometimes writers for Tv shows, why cant I see my favourite authors episodes somewhere on goodreads? These kinds of connections or trivia are hidden deep within a wikipedia article, where most people never see them. But if they were just there?
  • A complete library

    I want to eventually fill everything out. Like an author? Click on them and see all their books and writing credits. Like a studio? What else did they do? Like an actor?

    From my research into other trackers, this is one of the most requested features. People just want to explore what they like.
  • Get personalized recommendations that actually make sense.

    Similar to unique connections, there is high potential in getting really unique recommendations that even the smartest spotify or netflix algorithm cannot find, because the simply dont care about your games.
    With enough users and data the system will eventually be able to find unique patterns that users that played Skyrim also enjoy the Berserk manga.
  • Proper handling of rewatches and rereads

    I watch stuff multiple times. Usually years apart. The other trackers do a really bad job with this. Its hidden deep within some dialog and barely visible. I made rewatches a first class feature and I'm really happy with how it turned out. Rating a watch rather than a movie, makes so much more sense.

    It also adresses some discourse of "how do you rate stuff?". People discuss what to do when they read a book in middle school and loved it and now reread it as a 24yo. Should you rate Percy Jackson lower now? Should you rate it "for kids". What if you think something was a 10 on the first watch but an 8 on the second? Give it a 10, 9 or 8?

    Again there is a lot of potential for unique insights with this. Movies that get an average of 7 on their first watch, but 9 on their second across enough people are probably worth a rewatch...
  • Automation wherever it makes life easier

    Im a lazy person, I probably wont keep my list up if it isnt at least 90% automated. I assume others are too.

Monetization

At the moment MediaLib is a side project, but im taking it serious as a potential business. So I have put in some thought on how to make it work.

No artificial limits.
After the recent trakt debacle I have decided that I will never make the amount of collections or amount of titles within collections limited.

No ads.

Optional premium features similar to storygraph or letterboxd for $3-10 a month.
(Something like extra stats, pinned collections, custom ratings or custom tags. Maybe recommendations based on certain collections. A badge to show off. Nothing here is final.)

I feel like these premium features are almost unnecessary, but a certain subset of the user base is happy to keep the lights on for a service they enjoy.

Transparent affiliate links to physical products like books, games or blu rays. Like Goodreads.

The Future & Sustainability

MediaLib is currently a side project, but I'd love to work on it full-time eventually. I'm committed to keeping this running and evolving.

I'm thinking about a simple "premium for the rest of the year" one-time $30 payment model. This would help gauge interest and potentially bring on additional help, while also committing me to maintain the service at least through the year. But thats probably still months off.

MediaLib is built by a real person (just me!), not a corporation. I'm building this because I want it to exist in the world, and I hope you'll find it as useful as I do.