Glue: The social network and iPhone app you can get stuck in

Although it drives my wife nuts, I like social networking apps. I've been tweeting since the Twitter bird first hatched from a little blue egg and I leave a trail of FourSquare check-ins wherever I wander. On the other hand, it seems like that for every really cool social network that appears, there are a lot of them that I use once and then drop.

When I first heard about Glue, my instinct was to give it a try and then move on. However, what I've found is another fun tool that is quite a bit different from FourSquare (which is all about locations) and Twitter. Glue is described as a "social network for entertainment," and that's a very good description.

Instead of FourSquare's "Where am I now?" and Twitter's "What am I doing?," Glue asks what you're currently up to -- watching a TV show, listening to music, reading a book, watching a movie, playing a video game, chatting about a celebrity, thinking about a topic, or drinking wine.

Glue builds a profile of your likes and dislikes by letting you rate a number of items in each category. Like FourSquare, Glue rewards your activity with stickers (FourSquare calls them badges) that give you bragging rights among your peers. I'm happy to report that due to my vast amounts of dislikes when it comes to current movies and music, I have acquired the "Debbie Downer" sticker. Unlike FourSquare, once you've unlocked 7 stickers, Glue gives you a way to get real (not virtual) stickers to paste on your laptop, iPad case, or children.
As you'd expect, Glue has a free app. If you haven't created an account through the GetGlue website, you can sign up through the app. Once you're in the app, you can check in (tell others what you're currently doing to entertain yourself), stream (see what others are doing), rate entertainment items (albums, artists, movies, etc...), admire your stickers, or work with your profile.

I'm not sure why, but I found Glue to be very addictive, particularly when rating things. For example, as I was looking at the app for the purposes of writing this review, I wandered off into rating albums for a half-hour -- not a good way to remain productive, that's for sure. After my wife asked about Glue and signed up for an account, she spent close to two hours filling in her likes and dislikes. I think I now know why they call it Glue - you can get stuck in it!

In a conversation with the folks at Glue, they mentioned that the app will begin to make suggestions to you as they get a better idea of your likes and dislikes. They've partnered with several TV series to create special badges; Showtime's Dexter is a perfect example, and you can get badges for being an über-fan of the show. At this point, some of the recommendations seem to be a bit off, but like most algorithms for following the likes and dislikes of humans, it probably needs some fine tuning.

If you're a fan of social networking sites, give Glue a try. Take a look at the gallery below to see how the iPhone app works, then get to work on sharing your likes and dislikes. Remember -- you don't need to have an iPhone or iPod touch to use Glue, so if you're a Mac or PC user without an iDevice, head over to the website (GetGlue.com) to get started. Just make sure you've got plenty of spare time, as you may get sucked in like my wife and I did.

Disclaimer: One of our Weblogs, Inc. partner blogs, Cinematical, collaborates with Glue.


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