The Glue Community Gets What It Asks For

I hope you didn’t miss this in the wake of the Web2.0Expo excitement this week. AdaptiveBlue released a few major upgrades to Glue yesterday that the community is no doubt going to love. These guys consistently show how in tune they are with what their community wants and how committed they are to delivering value to the users (it’s all about the community, right?). Here’s what’s been added…

1. Connected Conversations (see video 2 below)
2. Smart Recommendations (see video 1 below)
3. A Slimmer Glue Bar with more information
4. Slick integration with Twitter, Tumbler and FriendFeed right from the 2 cents box (see video 2 below)
5. Automatic synchronization with your entire social graph via Facebook and Twitter
6. The ability to see who the top users are in each category and follow them around the web.

I’ve been a heavy Glue user since its realease last October (I use it multiple times a day). I’ve been on the beta for a week now and I’ve been really impressed with the new features. ReadWriteWeb echoed my feelings about the upgrade in their coverage of the upgrade release on Thursday…

“People who have been using Glue since it came out will tell you it is addictive. Now, especially with the ability to have conversations around the books, music, movies and other things that you enjoy, we are sure there’s no way to not get addicted and quickly find like-minded folks who can give you great recommendations on things that you will love.”

Here are 2 of quick videos (1 minute each) to show you exactly what the new features do…

Glue For You from AdaptiveBlue on Vimeo.

Glue: Likes, Comments, and Replies from AdaptiveBlue on Vimeo.

My Thoughts On The New Features

Because Glue is new and so different than any other social networking tool or service out there, we (the community) are still figuring out all the stuff it can do. Users come up with (and share) new ideas with the developers all the time – and they consistently listen well and deliver, which is making each iteration of Glue more useful. Over the past few months, many of us agreed that we wanted some specific new features – the ability to have conversations was the biggest one (see video 2 above). The reason is that social browsing doesn’t feel anything like logging into services like Facebook and then finding friends and engaging them – there’s no need to log in to other services, shorten links and jump through social media hoops. Instead, interaction happens as you’re doing things you normally do, and engagement happens when you find something you like, right there on the page. It’s a lot more like window shopping in a mall and having your friends show up JUST as you stare into a window and think “that looks cool, I wonder what my friends think about it!”. Glue virtually eliminates the social media “login –> write message –> shorten link –> post” friction we all suffer through. The second I find a book, movie, restaurant etc that I want to get an opinion on or discuss…there are my friends in the Glue bar and I can start a conversation. Bottom line, social browsing and having conversations on a page is a very new concept that we’re still getting used to and building habits around. I think AdaptiveBlue’s implementation solves the conversation problem we were having well.

The second thing we wanted was to know what was popular and to get recommendations based on what our friends liked. I personally use Amazon’s “people who bought this also bought” feature a lot when I buy books, and surf sites like RottenTomatoes.com for movie reviews before I buy tickets. The only problem is that neither of these services tell me what is popular with people I know right now. Glue has started to solve this problem by surfacing recommendations based on what stuff my friends are currently browsing. I’ve even started using the Glue iPhone app when I go to a book store to see what my friends are reading, which is super useful. The point here is that “current” is better because most of us would rather read books, watch movies and try restaurants etc that our friends think rock NOW. We want to talk about and connect around those things while they matter. Glue is getting better at that (hint: get your friends on it soon and before you know it, you’ll know what they like without them even telling you!)

The rest of the features that have been added are solid, but aren’t as visionary and groundbreaking as the ones I’ve talked about above, in my opinion, so I’ll touch on them lightly. Automatic synchronization with Twitter and Facebook is sweet because it allows you to stop thinking about and managing your social graph. It does that all for you with zero effort. If you’re linked on Facebook or Twitter, and you’re both on glue…you’re linked. People like me with thousands of contacts to manage will really apprecaite the effort the development team has put in here. The integration with Facebook, Friendfeed, Twitter, Tumblr and email is also a nice-to have if you manage multiple accounts. Again, you can post to many profiles without the friction of logging in, shrinking links and posting in different profiles – it’s all done right from the page (even link shrinking is done automatically, which is nice). Finally, the ability to see top users in each category gives you an idea of who the hardcore users are on any given week so you can find people who really care about books, movies, restaurants etc and see what they’ve got to say.

Final Thoughts And My Plug For The Glue Community

A lot of time, effort and thought went into this release of Glue and it shows in the new UI and functionality. Social browsing tools are a very new thing, but once you get used to them, you’ll likely find they have major advantages to other networking tools – Using Glue takes less time, less energy and the conversation is always in context of the object (no matter which site the object appears on), which makes it consistently useful. This isn’t just another social network – it’s a tool suite that’ll help you effectively manage and leverage your existing social profiles and online presence in a seamless way.

If this is the first time you’ve heard of Glue, you believe in the semantic web movement, you’re into social networking and you’re the type of person that gets a rush out of being involved in building something and watching software grow and evolve, I’d encourage you to sign up for glue and get active in the community (You can find me here – I’ll introduce you to other passionate users if you’re interested in joining us). The AdaptiveBlue team has created a vibrant, active feedback loop for its passionate users and, for me, being part of the growth has been an awesome learning experience and I’ve met some really great people in the process.

If you’re already on Glue, you can find me here.

See you around the web!