We’ve had a lot of recent requests to support lala.com. As of today recording artists and albums on lala.com are now supported by Glue.
If you visit an album or an artist, the Glue bar will appear. When visiting lala.com you will now see personalized suggestions, friend reviews, and have an easy way to customize your GetGlue.com profile.
We are excited about the API, particularly because we are getting very strong response from the users on the new launch. In the first 3 days after launch, Glue users rated over 250,000 objects.
We are continuing to get a new rating every 3 seconds, and are now opening up meta data and links to over 3 millions books, music and movies stored in our database.
The API enables developers to read/write all aspects of Glue via REST. It offers access to Glue streams and collections, Social Graph, likes/comments and other actions, as well as ability to tap into AdaptiveBlue’s semantic engine.
Here are the highlights of what you will find under http://api.getglue.com/v2:
Authentication
The API uses token based authentication. The users are required to authorize the application via HTTPS login and after that everything can be done via a token. There are no developer keys, so its easy to get started using your own Glue user id.
Users, Objects and System
All API calls fall under 3 categories: /user, /object and /glue. /user are for accessing user-specific information such as profile, friends and interests per category. The /object API exposes the user activity around objects, exposes to similar objects and gives access to the semantic engine for meta data and links to this object around the web. The system API, located under /glue, enables the developers to fetch supported categories, search for objects and users, as well as fetch the recent stream of Glue activity.
User collections, activities, streams
With user permission, developers can read/write all user information from/to Glue. For example, /user/objects gives access to objects by category. The API also allows developers to submit likes, comments and replies on user behalf. /user/stream provides the access to personalized stream of suggestions and friends activity, while /user/guru gives listing of all things that the user is Guru of right now.
Object activity and semantics
The Glue object API enables developers to fetch the activity around a given object, for example /object/users returns the ordered stream of the user activity around a given object, and /object/replies returns the listing of replies to the given user. The API also enables fetching similar objects via /user/similar.
Another part of the object API lets the developers tap into AdaptiveBlue’s semantic technology and access meta data about millions of objects around the web. /object/get enables query by URL for rich meta information about books, movies, music, etc. from hundreds of popular sites. In addition, the API lets developers fetch links to the given object by calling /object/links and passing in Glue key.
Getting started
The API is free to be used for up to 5,000 calls per day. It is easy to get started, just create a GetGlue.com account and head over to read the documentation at http://getglue.com/api. If you have any questions please email support at getglue.com or visit the Glue developer Google Group.
We are excited to see what you are going to build.
Today we are pleased to announce the launch of GetGlue.com, a social recommendation network for movies, books, music, and other everyday things.
There are four major parts to the release: personalized suggestion streams, GetGlue profiles, Stickers and Guru, and an update to the Glue browser add-on. Here’s a 60 second introduction to GetGlue.com:
(1) Personalized Suggestion Stream:
Once logged-in, the GetGlue.com homepage becomes a continuous stream of suggestions. The suggestions are based on personal tastes, friend favorites, and what’s popular with everyone. As Glue users interact with movies, books and music on GetGlue.com and hundreds of popular sites across the web, the stream updates with fresh, personalized suggestions.
(2) GetGlue Profiles:
GetGlue profiles are the easiest way for individuals to collect and share the movies, books, and music that they like. When looking at another user’s profile, common interests are quickly seen and it’s straight forward to discover new things through them.
(3) Stickers and Guru:
Users are rewarded with a variety of stickers for their efforts and achievements on Glue. It’s also possible to be recognized as the Guru of specific books, movies and music. There can only be one Guru per item, so users will have to work for the honor.
(4) Updated Browser Add-on:
The new Glue add-on appears on hundreds of popular sites about movies, books, music, and more. The add-on appears to provide in context suggestions, friend reviews, clips, and a way to quickly build a taste profile to get better suggestions.
Get Glue and Find Your Next Favorite Thing.
We hope you find this release as exciting as we do! Thank you to everyone in the Glue community for your insight and support, we couldn’t have built this without your guidance.
Please sign-up for your account and start personalizing your suggestions at www.getglue.com. We look forward to your feedback on the new GetGlue.com!
Suggestion Stream
Profile
Stickers
Glue Add-on
Here’s some press covering this announcement:
Techcrunch: “GetGlue has the power to create a stream of personalized recommendations around social products, such as movies, books and music.”
Mashable: “The suggestion engine aspect of the site now really adds a lot of value — especially if you are frequently looking for cool things.”
The Next Web: “If you have been using Glue, this is going to be a major treat, so get over there, and get some tips on what you will like, that you have not discovered yet.”
CNET: “Today, Glue is adding a more traditional profile-based system to the site, which provides more incentives for users to contribute regularly.”
ReadWriteWeb: “The result is friendly competition, increased interactions, and a very sticky website that’s compelling and entertaining for even the least technical end user.”
Lifehacker: “Glue packs in quite a few features on top of just suggesting new things, including movie previews and integration with popular sites like Amazon.com and Last.fm”
We’re pleased to announce that as of today new Glue tooltips are integrated into all of our widgets across the web.
More than 30,000 Glue widgets are live on more than 10,000 blog and major publishing partner sites, including Random House, NY Times, Hearst properties, O’Reilly Media, and hundreds of bestselling authors from all major book publishers.
The new tooltips expand the Glue network and increase user experience, conversion, and time-on-site for our partners.
The main tab of the tooltip is complimented by category specific secondary tabs. For example, book tooltips provide a way to browse inside of the book, links to purchase the book, and in-place Amazon reviews. Movie tooltips provide an in-place trailer, Rotten Tomatos summary and links to purchase or rent the movie.
We’re thrilled to bring the tooltips to our widgets and provide you with a better experience as you browse the web. If you’re interested in widgets for your site please contact us at support AT getglue DOT com.
As you enjoy Glue, we’re working hard to make it even better. Don’t get jealous, but we’re already testing the new version! I thought I would share a sneak peak at the new bar!
The bar is much smaller (60% of the previous size). There is my new favorite feature - the big thumbs down. The Yellow and Blue outlines are gone, and have been replaced with clear thumbs-up and comment icons. It’s now easy to see how many people and friends like the item - this was an often requested feature.
On the right-hand side of the new Glue bar (not visible in the image) are items that are similar to what you’re looking at and an easy way to see suggestions. This is still a work in progress and our designer Jason has already changed a few details.
The tooltips currently live on GetGlue will be included in the new Glue bar. How cool is that? The tooltips automatically bring relevant info to you. If you’re on Netflix or Wikipedia you’ll able to see the movie’s trailer. You can also read reviews, buy it, see images, and so on.
Update: Here’s a screenshot that shows the new search functionality. Enter the name of an item and easily access the object’s page on Glue - showing you friend reviews, links to the best on the web, and similar items for the object.
We are hoping to release the new Glue very soon, but if you can’t wait, and are interested in beta testing, just leave your Glue username below!
Last week we discussed the web-wide dataset that Glue’s amassing. To highlight the richness of the data, we revealed that Netflix activity makes up less than 15% of all movie data on Glue.
In this post we’ll share some data from music activity on Glue. Based on the responses to the question we posed on Twitter, this data will be surprising.
Glue’s web-wide music coverage is fairly broad. Appearing on more than 50 popular music sites, Glue’s coverage ranges from A (5 different sites) to Z (Zune).
When Glue activity for each music site is plotted (left), the result is a power law curve.
The five most popular music sites on Glue dominate the others, accounting for 85% of the activity. The remaining 15% of music activity on Glue is spread across more than 50 sites.
The 5 Most Popular Music Sites
In order, the most popular music sites are Wikipedia, Myspace, Amazon, Last.fm and eMusic.
Accounting for 50 % of all music activity on Glue, it was surprising to us - and those who answered our question - that Wikipedia and Myspace are the prominent sites for music fans on the web.
In an informal poll, Glue-rs provided the following reasons for visiting these sites: (i) Wikipedia: completeness of information - info, albums, song lists; (ii) Myspace: access to media - songs, pictures, video.
While this may be true, we believe that the prominence of these two sites in Google search results contributes significantly to their high activity levels. For various artist searches, the artist’s homepage, Wikipedia, and Myspace are consistently the top three results (see: Rihanna, Counting Crows, Lady Gaga, Metallica).
Conclusions
Spread across more than 50 popular music sites, Glue’s music coverage is web-wide. The dataset is rich and growing daily, capturing popularity and trend information. While we turn to a small handful of sites for the majority of our music info, there’s a healthy distribution of activity across a long, flat tail.
I am a huge fan of SeamlessWeb and am so excited that it is now Glue-d!
For those of you who don’t know what Seamlessweb is, it is a simple way to order food online. Seamless takes away all the worry of ordering food over the phone. Loud restaurants, not having cash, and so on, they aren’t issues.
Now, my experience on Seamless has gotten even better with the addition of Glue! You don’t often talk to friends about where to order lunch, but now that Glue is on SeamlessWeb I can see my friends opinions on these types of places.
To celebrate this integration we ordered lunch today on Seamless from Noodle Bar!
When visiting and interacting with websites we share important data about ourselves: Netflix knows some movies I watch, Amazon knows some books I read, and Last.fm knows some music I listen to.
While this data enables these services to provide additional value - Amazon suggests books; Last.fm notifies me of concerts - there’s two major issues: (i) the data is not accessible by the user; (ii) the data is site-centric.
For example, despite Netflix knowing some movies I watch, they don’t know about my movie activity across other sites. And there’s no easy way for me to let them know.
Therein lies the problem to site-centric datasets that aren’t user controlled: each site represents a fraction of our total web activity within a given vertical. Increasingly our interactions within a vertical are web-wide. For movies, we read reviews on Rotten Tomatoes or IMDB, watch trailers on Apple, buy tickets on Fandango, rent from Netflix, and buy discs from Amazon.
Glue’s data supports this: of all movie data on Glue, less than 15% comes from Netflix.
Glue’s web-wide dataset is enabled by our core semantic technology and the ability to correlate objects across hundred’s of popular sites.
This robust (and fast growing) dataset enables Glue to provide unique value to our user community. Today, it’s already showing you what’s popular across the web and providing personalized suggestions based on your web-wide activity. Tomorrow? There are a lot of options with data this rich. What would you like to see?
I’m sure most of you have seen our awesome Glue shirts and stickers. We’ve been sending them out to passionate Glue-rs, and also sending them around the country (and Canada) to different tech events.
If you haven’t seen the swag, check out our Flickr Group, I <3 Glue, where Glue-rs are posting pictures of themselves sporting their Glue gear.
I’ve picked some favorite pictures to highlight:
Dan (JengaJumanji) for incorporating a Gorilla wearing a suit.
Matthew (matthewclower) for including his adorable nephew
Stephen (nemoid) for putting a Glue Shirt on his puppy Harry
When Glue was first launched there was a vision for a positive system to share the things you loved.
However, there has always been users - like Bill,Callum, and James- who have been itching to give some objects a big Thumbs Down.
We’ve also observed that a growing number of people use the comment feature to share that they didn’t like a book or movie.
With the launch of Glue Suggestions we’ve realized that we need to introduce a new rating option. To provide better suggestions people need to be able to say that they don’t like an item or that a suggestion isn’t for them.
As well as providing better suggestions, the thumbs-down will allow people to express their pessimistic side. I’m excited about this because I love giving things I hate a big Thumbs Down.
Here is a sneak peak of what the new Thumb-up / Thumb-down button will look like.
What do you think? Are you excited to start giving a big Thumbs Down to certain things?
