Glue Tries to Become the Web's Social Network Adhesive

The age of the walled garden social network seems to be fading. While you still have extremely active social networks with dedicated users, the data inside the vast majority of these sites is ripe for the taking, as you can display photos, status updates, new entries and other posted items, in new locations, thanks largely to RSS. In fact, the most widely known walled garden of the day, Facebook, is slowly opening up to the standard Web, as they recently announced Google will soon index those fan pages you have signed up for. But is there room for a different type of social network, that follows you to many different sites, running as an add-on to your Web browser?

Glue, a new entry from Adaptive Blue, hopes so. Their offering, an extension to Firefox, tries to show friends' activity on a myriad of different sites, starting with entertainment items, such as books, movies, music and restaurants. As you look for something fun to do, rather than reading a review from somebody you don't know, you can see what your friends have recommended. Additionally, rather than asking you to sign in to a single location, Glue decentralizes the information, and shares it with you as you go to integrated sites, from IMDB to Amazon, Flixster and more.


Glue shows your friends comments and likes of items around the Web.
Once you have added Glue to your Firefox browser, the extension comes to life any time your Web experience crosses paths with their list of sites. When browsing a film that your friends have said they "liked" or added a comment, shown as "adding two cents", you can see that atop your browser window, running in a horizontal strip above the page's content itself.

If your contacts have previously "liked" an item or added their two cents, you can put your mouse over their avatar and see what they thought. You can also click through any single individual's profile and see all of their relevant activity. If they have rated other books, films or music, you can scroll through their marked items. Instead of needing to go to a third-party service, like Shelfari or Goodreads, Glue tries to store this data, accessible from any enabled site.

As with many other services, Glue becomes more useful once you have registered your profiles with other networks, added friends and racked up activity. You can register different services, such as Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm, FriendFeed and LinkedIn, and can even use these networks to find friends who are already using Glue. Assuming you have activity on those networks, you won't have to start off lonely and without friends.

I'm not a huge Firefox fan, preferring Safari, and any time I find a new tool, I wish it had perfect compatibility, across browsers and platforms. That Glue doesn't support every browser out of the box might slow its adoption, but once it's installed, it is a very simple tool that doesn't require a lot of maintenance. If you spend a lot of time looking for new entertainment on the Web, Glue might mean you have friends coming with you to help decide, whether they know it or not.

You can "Get Glue" at www.getglue.com.

Additional coverage of Glue from around the Web:

• ReadWriteWeb:
  Put The Social Web In Context With Glue's New Browser Plugin
• CenterNetworks:
  AdaptiveBlue Launches Glue

The New World of Browser Choices is All About the Hooks

In a perfect technology world, every Web site and every Web application would perform the same way across all Web browsers, operating systems and mobile devices. But we're not in a perfect world, and Web surfers' experiences are being increasingly determined by browser-specific plug-ins, third party applications and tie-ins with the host operating system. The result makes it less likely that one Web browser user can make a switch, after having invested in one specific application to get a tailored user experience.

Today's big news/rumor is that Google is preparing their own Web browser, called Chrome, which is based on WebKit, the same foundation underlying Apple's Safari browser. While the news hasn't been confirmed by Google outright, all indications make it appear to be true.

(Update: Google has now made it official)

There Are A Lot of Questions About Chrome

With news of Chrome, Web enthusiasts are already asking questions - will it support the GreaseMonkey scripts designed for FireFox? Will it be released for Mac OS X on the same day it's released for Linux and Windows? And, as it's so early, at least the latter question can't be answered. But assuming they are using WebKit, it's unlikely GreaseMonkey scripts could be used out of the box.

Today's Web Browsing Experience Comes Down To:

1. Speed
2. Reliability
3. Compatibility
4. Data Portability
5. Extensibility

It is no longer enough to load the fastest. The time when you could put Internet Explorer and Netscape or Safari and Firefox side by side and show me how quickly they loaded HTML pages or performed JavaScript renders is gone. People just expect the browsers to work. And if they crash even once a day, users are unhappy. So Speed and Reliability are assumed.

Compatibility, for the most part, is a small issue at this point. It's a rare site that says "Please Use Internet Explorer" or "Your Operating System is Not Yet Supported", although that does happen. That's why initial response to Internet Explorer 8, beta 2, was so tepid, as it really did fail the basic expectations. (See Steven Hodson's critique)

That leaves what I see as the most important points going forward: Data portability and extensibility, and the biggest trojan horse I see going forward to impact the browser marketplace is the iPhone.

If Google Announces Chrome, Does Apple Put it In the iTunes App Store?

Apple made a custom, light-weight, version of Safari for the iPhone, which makes their Web browser the default browsing experience for what's the world's most talked-about cell phone. Using Safari on the iPhone makes it more likely that you will use Safari on your Mac or your PC because it can synchronize your bookmarks, and unify your browsing experience. Changing bookmarks on your desktop means they are changed on the iPhone.

Today, there are no alternative Web browsers for the iPhone. No Firefox, no Opera, and definitely, no Internet Explorer. While Google and Apple appear to be friends, and Google makes applications for the iTunes Application Store, and therefore, the iPhone, can you see Apple opening up the option for users to browse in Chrome instead? And even if they did, the likelihood of Chrome's behavior being mirrored to the desktop, via iTunes, is slim.

Apple playing the role of gatekeeper to the iTunes Store will be a bigger deal as the iPhone increases in market share.

Could Mozilla/Firefox Apps Be Re-written for WebKit?

There are scads of great GreaseMonkey scripts designed for some of the social networks I use, including FriendFeed. In addition, the Google Reader overlay, Feedly, only works in Firefox, so as long as I stay in Safari, I don't use the product at all. To date, Safari has badly trailed Firefox and IE in terms of getting add-ons, like browser toolbars and plug-ins, but if Google were to enter the market with another WebKit-based browser, that could shake things up.

So What About the Hooks?

As a Mac user and a MobileMe customer, my e-mail, Web browser bookmarks, and address book are synchronized across my devices, both laptop and iPhone, and the data is available online from any computer, in the cloud. Because of these hooks, I'm not a good candidate to move away from Safari any time soon, and I'm more tied into Apple's infrastructure of E-mail, Address Book, and iCal than ever before.

For others, it's Google who has the hooks. From their Google Calendar to GMail and Picasa, they've trusted Google with their personal data. For these folks, Google will undoubtedly tailor Chrome to their interests, and it would be hard for competitors like Apple and Microsoft to make the interoperability any better. But this, of course, leaves out the iPhone scenario, which leads us to Android, Google's approach to make a next-generation phone operating system, distributed through multiple handset partners.

Now, instead of seeing that a browser is faster, or more pretty, or has more features, it's more important that we can move our data around between devices and that the applications don't hiccup. We may not have seen it at first, but as the major browser vendors start to tie in to the applications you use every day, they're getting more of a hook into you as a customer, and reducing your potential to use an alternative product. Even before we see Google's Chrome in action, I know it will take being lighter, faster, and as reliable, to start, plus featuring the type of hooks that Safari does today, on the iPhone, to make me consider it anything more than a hobby and as a primary browser alternative.

We've come a long way since Microsoft embedded Internet Explorer in the Windows operating system and was deemed a monopolist, but that won't stop the big players from playing favorites with their own applications and giving you reasons to stick around.