Starting TriYou

Posted: August 8th, 2010 at 7:30pm

Welcome to TriYou! The posts on this blog will keep you up-to-date on any TriYou news, features and enhancements.

TriYou! - Movies, Books, Music and You. In a few words that is what this site is, or more specifically an extension of yourself through what you read, watch, and listen to regularly; and what you have to say about these things. It is also, I hope, a new gateway to connect with others who share similar interests. Perhaps in a more meaningful manner than many other sites across the web offer.

There are several other individuals out there I suspect, who like myself, define themselves (in part) by these mediums—books, music and movies. If some of you are like me, then it is significant if someone’s favorite book is Breakfast of Championsor if their favorite album is KID A. I think that this will tell you more about a person than let’s say their hometown or where they went to school or even their age.

I also think that by using TriYou as an extension of you, it will be quite possible to connect with people you otherwise would not have and in the process learn about new music, books and movies and teach others as well.

The Top Ten Lists

The core foundation of this site of course lies within these lists--each user’s lists of top ten albums, movies and books respectively. Primarily, users would gauge how compatible they are with other’s tastes in these fields. For instance, if a particular user posts Pulp Fiction, Goodfellasand Shutter Islandin their top ten movie list and these are three movies you love, and they also post Bottle Rocketwhich you have never seen, this may be something to check out—and you could follow this users other posts, reviews et cetera. Conversely, if someone’s list is littered with products you detest and they say they love Avatar you might decide to shy away from it.

These lists will:

• Let others see what you are into and what others like too.
• Give you a good idea if another user’s tribar entries, recommendations, comments and reviews have any merit for you. On TriYou, if a user reviews a product you can look at their other posts and help decide if their words carry any weight with you.
• Be an exercise narcissism, but hopefully a pleasing one (again if you are like me, it will be enjoyable to see you favorites posted together in one place). Just the act of making my lists made me think about the titles I chose and why I considered them the best. It gave me good reason to go back and re-explore my favorites and try to narrow each category down to ten—I had the advantage of thinking about it for over a year and still made some changes when I was posting but I have to say, it was fun to do.

Remember it is YOUR list. Fill out as much or as little as you like, change it as frequently as you want or keep it the same . One user -- chuckthetruck-- changes his movie list periodically according to his mood at the time. Another user -- ngs091-- will not even fill out a list, citing that there are too many to choose from-but he has recommended dozens and made more product comments than any other on the site. Keep in mind the recommend section is a good way to supplement your ten lists, but be creative and fill it out however you like and most of all have fun.

Features and Enhancements

We would like to encourage as much communication and interaction among users as possible and TriYou accordingly is in the process of developing new features and enhancing old ones that will facilitate this.

We have recently added a chat section on the site and have enhanced the profile page to include announcements—things like concert dates, release dates, or anything else you may want to add.

We are also adding product notifications, a means of indirect communication that will notify you of your favorite books, music and movies activity on the site, without necessarily having to contact another user if you prefer not to. If you want to follow all the activity and posts related to Kill Bill or Abbey Road you could do so, but ultimately the goal of these notifications is help similar users find each other to share and learn in these realms.

"Some Bricks Now Baby, Let's Build a Home"

I feel like we are building on a solid foundation (with what little users we have thus far (574) at the time of this writing) of music, book and movie enthusiasts.

Users with unique tastes in movies such as primus791 or those with obscure musical inclinations like ngs091 and we hope to gain more users like these daily. This site’s integrity and relevance is largely dependant on the quality of the users and I think we are headed in the right direction.

We are the first to say we’re building a solid foundation. We’re also the first to admit the site is in its infancy and still addressing many problems for improvement. There are only two of us presently so improvements are not always as timely as we would like, but if you bear with us, TriYou will be a social media site we all can enjoy.

We are confident, with your participation we can build an entertaining, informative and educational site for all you media junkies to enjoy.