Alex Iskold (@alexiskold), the founder of AdaptiveBlue and occasional RWW feature writer, was nice enough to sit down with me and give me a test drive of the new version of Glue. We started out covering the basics (which we wrote about here) and moved on to the new features:

Connected Conversations

Building on the concept of being able to share thoughts and opinions on things with your friends on Glue, regardless of the site those things are found on, is taken to the logical next step with the addition of conversations. Now, if you see that someone has commented on something that you are looking at, or have an opinion on, you can add a comment to their opinion. In turn they can comment back, or others can join in on the conversation. Through these interactions, you will be exposed to new people who perhaps came to the conversation from a completely different web site, Wikipedia for instance, instead of Amazon, but are using Glue to transcend the social boundaries of these sites.

Smart Recommendations

Being a contextual network that uses semantic technology to gather information and trends, Glue now aggregates this data and can present what books, movies and music your friends like the most instantly. Creating this recommendation data is done automatically as people use the Glue application by indicating what they like. The lesson here is, the more you use glue, the better a resource you become to your friends who also use the service.

Web Wide Top Lists

Expanding the snapshot to encompass the entire Glue network, web wide top lists contain the aggregate weekly activity of all Glue users, pointing out larger trends and new music, movies and other things that are just being discovered. This is also a great place to find new Glue users to add to your network, and find active conversations on comments that have been made by the Glue community.

Questions and Answers

At the end of the presentation, I was able to ask Alex some questions about Glue. My biggest concern was one of privacy; How could I be assured Glue didn't watch everything I did in my browser, looking for the next semantic morsel to snatch up? It turns out the Glue addon is only active on certain sites, and does not communicate with the server until it finds a music track, movie or book that can be enhanced with Glue. Put simply, if the Glue bar doesn't appear on a web page, the Glue plugin is inactive. Alex also pointed to this web page that lists the sites that do trigger Glue.

Final Thought

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.