With the recent outroar with the MyAnimeList switching to a new layout and breaking the Unofficial MyAnimeList API, what is there left for me? With the new layout being harder to use, no complete official API and my wasted 3 months in making my own MAL Client and being broken after that I have been felt betrayed, the feeling that MAL doesn’t care about the users and want to force changes on users and not have developers make their own clients.
I have also lost hope with the Official API which have been untouched for several months and still lacking in functionality. When I start using Melative more and more and after the change, I thought to myself… do we really need MyAnimeList anymore? MyAnimeList is simply what AnimePlanet and AniDB is… and they still can’t track other Japanese media such as J-drama, light novels and visual novels.
Melative is the key for the future… It supports a wide variety of media, will be federated in the future and also it’s more open, as it’s using open source technologies. This reminds me of one quote that a commenter, kimaguresan wrote:
I really think that not being open in this day and age will doom you at some point or another.
Everything is about open services and if services don’t provide a open and workable api, they are going to fail. I am feeling that this is true with MyAnimeList with the incomplete API and clients having to resort to HTML scraping because of the lack of a full API. No developer should ever have to scrap HTML just to make a client for a service. It’s just like Twitter not providing a API and developers having to scrap HTML to make their own clients. HTML scraping is time consuming work and it’s not for the faint of heart.
So why Melative succeed and MyAnimeList fails? Simply because of the reasons of not being open enough and forcing unnecessary changes like the layout design over fixing what is broken and a lack of a fully functional API. This is why MyAnimeList is not going to have a future as they are continuing to frustrate users over a change of something that it’s not even broken and making it worse than before. Just read the whole thread of users complaining about the new layout and wanting the old layout back and the new layout not working on mobile devices. I feel that MyAnimeList is just hoarding it’s users, keeping the users hooked to the service and force changes despite the user complaints, but keep them from abandoning it.
It’s not all about Melative, but the new open source project Kronblr which will remove the barrier of the walled garden and allowing users to have a federated microblog without needing to sign up for a new account and also follow users on different domains.
If you have the desire to ditch MAL for Melative, just read my previous post on how to use Melative…It’s all there with a MAL Anime List to Melative Importer (a Importer for MAL Anime/Manga list functionality is included with Melative Library, a new project I’m working on.)
Will I be abandoning MAL Client OS X? No, but once the API ever gets done and/or the Unofficial MAL API gets fixed, I will do some work on it.
Seriously, what’s difficult on using the new MAL layout? Yeah it changed and is much uglier but it’s still the same.
@Kairu: I never use the WebUI since I don’t feel like pulling up the web browser and rather update from a program. It’s not convient.
Hmm, I can understand your trouble in this matter, but for most noobs like me and Kairu, just going to the website and updating there is a lot easier. Soooo what I’m trying to say is that I hope you enjoy using Melative, my relative! =D
(haha! Get it? It’s sort of like saying “my bro” but instead I said relative. Oh, but why did I say that? It’s because your username sort of reminds me of my own (except yours is 157 instead of 159). I used to make love with my Chikorita back in the Gold/Silver era, and I plan to do the same once the new revisions of those games come to the US for DS. Also, Melative rhymes with relative so I thought it was rather catchy! Oh yeaaaa!!!)
.-= Jesus159159159´s last blog ..Hidamari Sketch x ☆☆☆ – 02 =-.
WebUIIIIIIII…. Melative’s webui is not friendly, just takes some getting used to.
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Xinil doomed the site by deciding to be the sole programmer and locking down the API, period.
The web service is slowing down by the day, updates sometimes don’t happen at all, and the database borks all the time. He should have opened it up, but he’s paying the price now.
If he was thinking of somehow selling this thing for money, he’d better think again. With an API like that, I’d shudder to see the code behind the full app.
To answer the other commenters, the web UI doesn’t even work consistently, so what’s left really? Something prettier than anidb, but that doesn’t work? Yeah, no thanks.
I have to agree. The API that MAL have is lame compared to other services. AniDB has a API, but it’s rather difficult to use since it’s mostly UDP.The strongest point with Melative is that the API is rather easy to use and is complete. This is why I could produce a Melative Client so easily with more functions that MAL lacks (APIs such of metablogging, recommendations, favorites (coming soon, and MAL only supports 5 favorites) and other stuff like reading though a user’s recommendation list.
I ‘m using MAL less and less because of their changes they made and also the clients being half functional. I can no longer use the search function on any of the clients that uses the API and I had to make changes to the client to make it work again… If I could build a simple and complete client for users to use, that will just be enough for users to ditch MAL… Melative is not the only alternative, but Anime Planet, but they have yet to implement a API. Heck, I can make a iPhone/Android/Blackberry/whatever App for Melative at this state, but for MAL… meeeh.