Quite some time ago I was one of the very early Beta testers for Ning (a social network that's a 'horse of a different colour') and I set up several applications using the shell "bookshelf" app to capture just some of the books in my personal library (~4000 and counting) (I'm hoping that posting them here might spur me to capture the info on the thousands that aren't recorded in these apps yet!)

Cybernetics

34 of the books in my library connected to Cybernetcs and/or General Systems Theory can be found here

Management

 some 92 of books fitting into the broad term of Maangement can be found in this NIng Management Bookshelf

Nonprofit Bookshelf

just 3 of the books I have related to nonprofit organizations (I really have to do something about this - I have many more on my actual shelves!) 

Systems

A few (116) of the volumes in my library related to software, systems, and the business of software 

Eclectic Reader Bookshelf

340 books   in my library that happened to be easily at hand while I was helping out in the Beta Testing process for Ning !  My library contains books in almost every major subdivision of the US Library of Congress Classification scheme....  

Wowzers. That's a lotta ning.....

Do you like Ning? 

Readers Digest version: Mixed review 

Unabridged Version:  I may get back to using the Bookshelf ... not sure yet... I gave up on it for discussion apps and for 'blog' type apps.... its a non-starter imo in these areas... hence no links here to my abortive apps in those area.  

The full lowdown: 

I was in their very, very, early beta testing program.  I had very high hopes for it.  But these soured when they appeared to be either a) uninterested in bug reports or b) too busy with bug reports to give updates to their testers.

They were in a rush to get to public release and did some things that made me very unhappy as a user  and they  didn't seem to care about breaking systems - I know the drill with Beta, I'm prepared for almost anything (including right back to the drawing board), but they just didn't give me a warm feeling that they had what it takes to be a commercial success in terms of protecting their user's data. 

When they opened it up to the General Public, and I saw that they had not fixed what in my mind were some fundamental problems, I was worried there would be a backlash and they would peter out without reaching critical mass to make it a go.  So I stopped posting anything up to my Apps for well over a year... I  just didn't trust that they wouldn't fail.

Over the course of time  they changed their model of social networking somewhat... (I only found that out when I went back to post the apps I had created here).

I do like the Bookshelf app (although it still has many of the problems that I saw in the  early days.... I think that their search may still be broken ... but don't have the inclination to do the testing I would need to do to find out for sure).  In the meantime I've found nothing better for my bookshelf... When  I get some time I might look at the 'programming' of this app and see if I can fix some of the broken bits myself... but (at least in the early beta stages) it was not as straight forward to make your own app as they claimed they were going to make it.

I've got some 4,000 books that I would like to have this type of system for.... have you seen anything that might be a better bet. ?. (I tried a few to compare to Ning while I was beta testing, but they did't have the same ease of tying into Amazon.com, didn't have as complete flexibility for tagging, or some other factor that kept me working with NIng.) 

You question got me thinking some more,.... Looking back at Ning just now I remember one other thing they did...

they started out suggesting that they would allow users to create their own applications (or use the pre-rolled shells as a starting point) to make money if they so desired.  But then they went directly into competition with the early user base for 'subscribers' that would generate the revenue for the apps.  The set-up was such that the Ning sponsored app in any category easily took thefrontrunner possition and thus favoured spot in searches, tag clouds etc -- in what wasn't quite a 'winner take all' market but wasn't that far from it, this quaranteed that they didn't leave money on the table for the early people that they pitched to build their markets.

I wasn't interested in the money aspect (I found Squidoo's take on that much more inviting) but the fact that they were in a sense slanting the table while saying otherwise didn't leave me with a very good impression...

They did give me an lovely Ning mug and too small a T-shirt for my efforts (on the other hand, Squidoo has donated more than the cost of these to a charity on my behalf and this for much less effort) -  they were both set up as 'make some beer money ' schemes but only one one was forthright  from the start on the exact ramifications and meaning of their business model!