Credits to はれこ…? From pixiv

Expanding our networks, and making your anime logging a more social experience, and not the MAL Updater crap as it is now.

Introduction (quoted from Melative):

melative is a web-application/service which focuses on media (and media contexts). It provides an interface for users to catalog their experiences, interact with titles, and find other users with similar interests. For developers, the API allows a simplistic, RESTful interface to meta-information resources on media-titles, creators, and more.

In short,

Melative is just a great tool to share your experiences (and keep track of them in an awesomely organized list). You can keep track and log whatever you want, from anime, manga, music, games, all the way to events. Plus, it’s easy to use and much more interactive. The “beta” part just means that more features are yet to come, because it’s all stable already and the minor stuff needs to be restored.

Here are some comparisons and how Melative has all the features integrated into one for all your needs.

The Twitter aspect

A picture is worth a thousand words. Since I refuse to text flood again, a visual outlook:

The stream.

For those of you familiar with Twitter, it’s just like it. Forget tweets, here come melas. Only with more features than ever. Still got the stream/replies and the such, settings to modify your profile, but the feature that really grabbed me here was the Ping.FM feature, which lets you integrate with Twitter and post your updates from Melative. Kill two birds with one stone! Neato.

Wait, there’s more.

The sidebar.

Nothing like the sidebar to make it more Twitter-friendly and friendly in general. Friends list, mela’d categories, and most recently mela’d topics. Anime/gaming/manga/events, you name it. A picture for each event too.

The MAL aspect

I don’t even want to say that because it can be much better in its own way.

The experience.

As you can see, I like the list here than on MAL better since it provides a more detailed outlook of your list. Status updates, visual preview, the airing time, and all the anime in a nice list format too. Love it.

The anime details page.

Premiere date, genre, theme, airing schedule, staff cast, OP/ED, and the works. What’s not to like? Plus on the right, you can see the stream which has the latest chat on the topic. Interconnectivity for the win!

So why join?

…Have you even read this? Everything’s all in one neat package. Access new titles, rage about it, log it, and get informed about it. Plus you get a nice season list.

Fine…I’ll join. How?

Easy! Just follow these simple steps.

1. Register here.

2. After that, you can login here.

3. You’ll be brought to the stream. You can access it from the top bar.

4. Start following some people via their profiles, such as Ryan A (creator), mellow_bunny, natsuneko, and me, of course.

5. Here are some simple commands to start you off with:

/watched /an/AnimeNameHere/episode/##(episode number). to log anime.

You can also use /read /ma/MangaName/chapter/##. for manga logging.

Input those commands in the stream and you’re good to go. It’ll show up on your profile. Make sure you leave the period at all times.

Upcoming feature some time this week will have auto parsing of the title; thus, you just need to type in something like Bakemonogatariso it becomes/an/ Bakemonogatari/automatically…so if you type Bakemonotagari 5: , it’ll be parsed as /an/ Bakemonogatari/5. All the more user-friendly. You can always ask for more help/get used to more commands once you register.

Great alternatives besides the web interface:

• The Firefox extension
• The standalone
• twhirl integration (use laconi.ca and input username@melative.com as the username and your password as the password)

So I invite you to join this one of a kind experience. Just try it out for yourself and see how you like it!

Speaking of Melative, it released this great new plugin which parses the titles as a popup with some information on it. You can see this in action with the newly integrated feature on the sidebar, “Fall @ A Glance”. I had in mind as soon as it came out. Basically, it’s a rotating image script which has the fall lineup integrated with the script so you can get some info from there right on the spot. Try this out for yourself! Give credit though.

So that’s my rant there for Melative. Now you may be wondering,

WTF IS THIS TWITTER YOU KEEP TALKING ABOUT!?

Some terms I give it:

• Simplistic social stream
• Mini MSN
• A lot of fun.

Not going to delve into this much, but Twitter/Melative helped make the blogging experience better. You can socialize with fellow bloggers and see what’s happening in the otakuscape. You can also share your thoughts, opinions, and likes/dislikes here.

Long story short:

• It’s a great social experience
• It enhances the blogging experience, and
• Once in a while you can find something that will make you ROFLCOPTER.

I think without these great sites, I would be a leeching, non-social, unorganized bum. And much less chance a frequent blogger, either. You can see how to get started on all of this by jusuchin85’s great post/intro on it.

Just register, and start following a lot of people. Eventually, they’ll start following you back! I will. Here’s my page if you’re lost.

You won’t regret joining these recommends. I knew I didn’t. If you still want to hide in your shell and update MAL like a robot, fine. Didn’t say I tried, at least.

Hope I see some of you guys on Melative/Twitter soon.