Getting suggestions on entertainment, particularly which movie to watch, what band to listen to or which book to read, isn’t so simple. It’s true that you can ask your friends on Facebook or Twitter but how many times will you be willing to pollute your social stream asking for the slapstick comedy recommendations? It’s just not perfect.
A few automated recommendation engines have been around for a while to help you out and one among them is GetGlue. The USP of GetGlue is that it’s a social network dedicated to discovering all types entertainment, and they cover everything from movies and books to wine tasting. Read on to see how the web app can help you have some fresh fun.
Overview
While the app has been around for sometime now as a movie recommendation plugin, of late GetGlue has transformed into a social network for entertainment. They have a got fabulous web app complimented by top notch native apps for iOS and Android platforms so that you can check-in and rate things to discover new favorites, see what your friends are into, get stickers and win free stuff.
Overview
On top of getting recommendations from your friends, you can also see what others using the app are interested in and there is a ticker displaying live check ins of all Glue users. If you don’t have many friends, there is a huge community at Glue and there is a pretty good chance that you will find people who share your tastes and interests. Glue is a free web app and so are all its mobile apps.
To get access to badges, recommendations and the community, you will have to sign up. You can sign up with your Facebook account via Facebook Connect as well.
Glue Sites & Plugin
When Glue is added to your browser you get instant suggestions from your friends on these popular sites around the web. A lot of websites from a laundry list of entertainment verticals that are compatible with Glue Plugin are comprehensively compiled. Just click on the category icons to see the list of sites that Glue recognizes for each category.
Glue Sites
After installing the Glue plugin to your web browser, you will get recommendations of similar things when you visit an online entertainment destination.
Glue Plugin
For example, if you visit IMDB page of the movie The Godfather, the plugin will automatically show how many others have already liked the movie and movies from the same genre as recommendations. Three recommendations are shown by the plugin and if you are looking for more, hit the more link to go to the web app.
Dashboard
The GetGlue dashboard is brilliantly designed considering the fact that even a small slip up might end p cluttering the app with a flood of recommendations and suggestions. Recommendations based on your taste, messages and access to stream & community options are available at the top along with a search box.
Dashboard
The right column lists new recommendations for the current week and a list of items liked by others at this instant. On the right side column, you have links to the mobile GetGlue apps, the list of stickers you have unlocked so far, list of people following you etc.
GetGlue can also help you find your Facebook friends who already are members so that you can expand your network and the recommendations.
Checking In
If you are watching a movie, listening to a song or reading a book, you can ping everyone by checking in. Select the appropriate category icon and search for the name of the TV show you are watching.
Checking in
Once the results are displayed, click check in and you have now broadcasted to the world about the great TV show you are watching.
Select the Show
The check-in page has a thoughtful design and puts emphasis on finding people who share your interests. You get to see people who have watched & liked the show along with those who are watching right at this moment just like you.
Check in Status Page
Recommendations
Getting recommendations is as easy as pointing and clicking on movies and shows you like. Based on your selections, GetGlue will start adding recommendations and the process gets better everytime you like or dislike a listing. You can add a review to an item you have liked or dislike and share the same with your friends via Facebook or Twitter status updates.
Recommendations
The Steam feature shows your journey in GetGlue. It lists the items you liked, stickers unlocked, etc. in a chronological manner.
Stream
Exploring Glue
Got sometime to kill? Or looking for some out of the box recommendations? Try the Explore option. You get to see top liked items based on categories, a leader board showing the greatest moviebuff or bookworm or radiohead so that you can follow them to get awesome and fresh recommendations.
Exploring Glue
Moviebuff Leaderboard
Final Thoughts
It’s great to see the list of people watching the same show or reading the same book right at the same moment as you do. However, the ability to chat with them in real-time would be absolutely fantastic. Stickers are great to look at and motivate a lot to use the web app often, but it’s just annoying to receive an email whenever a sticker is unlocked. There’s no way to turn off this email alert.
There is no denying the fact that GetGlue is a fantastic recommendation engine and the number of recommendations just pour in as and when you like something. Therein lies the problem. The recommendations just flood you in one fell swoop and there is no way to filter the results. If there are 60 new recommendations and if you like a couple of them, 100 more recommendations will be generated.
The problem is, if you refresh the page, you will be seeing all 160 of them and you will have to work your way down again not knowing which ones you have seen and which you have not. Some sort of segregation and status indicator, like the Streams page would be a welcome addition. Being a multimedia addict, I find GetGlue to be of immense help in finding new TV Shows, movies and music. After three months of daily usage, I just love the app and am pretty sure you will too.