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This week I’m chatting about a web application called Glue . I look at a good number of web applications, and some are useful. Unfortunately, Glue is not one of those.
The premise of Glue is that it “shows you things that you’ll like based on your personal tastes, what your friends like, and what’s most popular on Glue.” In essence, it’s a browser add-on that will allow you to rate certain kinds of things online and to share those likes/dislikes with people who subscribe (same as friend/follow) you.
I started experimenting with Glue several months ago as a beta participant. However, I soon gave up on it for a variety of reasons (which I’ll detail in a bit). Glue was released fully this month, and I decided to give it another go. Alas, I was disappointed–again. Here’s why:
- Glue is a browser add-on, which means you have to add it to every browser on every computer that you might use for surfing.
- It does not support every site on the net that might have books, movies, electronics, etc. I found that Glue worked fine with Amazon, but did not support Thinkgeek. The limited number of places on the web where Glue works was a deterrent for me.
- I wasn’t really sure what problem Glue was trying to solve. I believe it was using the idea that referencing your friends’ tastes would be useful when picking out items, but in practice it didn’t bear out. The issue comes down to critical mass; Glue doesn’t have it (at least, not yet). Only 9 of my “friends” were on Glue, and none of us necessarily have compatible tastes. The reality is that Glue, to work well, would likely need a community the size of Facebook to make it really useful.
Some of my other comments about this app:
- You can earn virtual “stickers” by continuing to favorite items. These icons show up on your Glue profile. However, some stickers showed up on mine with no real explanation of what they were or how I earned them. Additionally, marking just 10 movies gave me a sticker called “Movie Buff.” Really?
- If you spend enough time using Glue, you can eventually become a “Guru.” There is only one of these per category, so you will likely have to fight it out with other Glue users for the title.
- The idea that Glue was tracking what I was looking at and publicizing it made me a tad nervous. The app does give you the ability to manually delete items from your profile, but that assumes you’ll remember to do that. Granted, I’m not surfing porn, but what if I wasn’t looking to advertise my Betsy-Tacy habit?
What does this mean to me, Laura?
- Glue does not have the critical mass in users or supported sites to make this a truly useful application. Lack of community is a real issue.
- A library could theoretically make use of this for readers advisory services but, frankly, expecting users to have to install a browser plug-in to follow the library is unrealistic.
- Overall, this app has a long ways to go, if it ever gets there.
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When Michael Jackson died on June 25, millions of people flooded onto Google News to find the latest information about what had happened. The spike in traffic was so massive that Google suspected a malware attack and began blocking anyone searching for “Michael Jackson.” –Clive Thompson on How the Real-Time Web Is Leaving Google Behind
The world, seemingly, moves faster every day. I can’t verify that the world is moving faster, but anecdotes like that, above, certainly show that people want news that moves faster. More and more, the first stop for people to find out about what’s happening is the Internet. People won’t wait for the “old” Internet any more; that typically means links that show up as relevant in Google. Google cannot possibly index everything on the Web as it’s happening in real time. People who want to know what’s happening as it’s happening know to look at trending topics on Twitter, or what their friends are linking to on Facebook.
Some new tools have popped up to help people interface more effectively with the real-time web. Some of these include Tweetmeme, and OneRiot. Both take very different approaches, but typically are pulling from the same data (Twitter). Tweetmeme shows what’s hot on Twitter at any given moment, and is more of a browsing experience. OneRiot provides an almost Google-like search bar for searching the real-time web.
What does this mean to me, Laura?
- Constant real-time news will likely create a culture where we are more conscious at a moment-to-moment level of what’s going on in the world (and our collective reactions to it).
- Users will increasingly be more engaged with information as it is available, especially with the exploding use of smartphones and mobile browsing.
- “Real-time information delivery will likely become ubiquitous, a requirement for almost any website or service.” (source)
- It’s time to think about what it means to your library when the information it puts out online is only being updated infrequently. Where is your library’s place in the evolving real-time web?
Recently, a frustrated librarian contacted me because she wanted to discuss a situation that had occurred at her library. After hearing her story, I asked her permission to recount it here (and to keep identifying details confidential).
In essence, here is her sad tale:
Her library had a MySpace account. The librarian friended anyone who wanted to be MySpace friends, believing that the library is accessible to all. It later turned out that some of the friends had some questionable content on their profiles. The administration reacted by severely criticizing the librarian and shutting down the MySpace account.
Here’s my take on this:
- Why is the library “screening” patrons at its virtual door when no library does it at its physical one? Why is the library’s presence online only open to some and not all?
- Regardless of what is on someone’s profile, that reflects on that person, not necessarily on the connecting friends. Unless the profile is somehow directly harming the library’s reputation, I just can’t see this argument. I refuse to take responsibility for every silly picture or irresponsible thing that my friends do online. Why should a library?
- Part of the administration’s overreaction was likely due to a misconception about how to approach social media. Traditional marketing and reputation management are not applicable. Libraries need to understand that successful social media has a human tone; market-speak and incessant self-promotion are a quick route to epic fail. Being human means having human friends, not necessarily paragons of what we want our patrons to be.
- If one of these “questionable” MySpace friends came to the library in person, would the library refuse to help them?
Libraries need their patrons. We don’t judge their information needs; why do we judge their lives outside of libraries?
It’s a pain, but security is each user’s responsibility, not just the tech’s.–Bobbi Galvin, OPLIN
One of the most common misconceptions library staff typically have about their email accounts is that nobody would want to hack them.
WRONG.
Your email account is an extremely valuable commodity, especially to a spammer. Check these stats out:
- The average PC user receives over 2,000 and counting spammed emails per year
- The average computer user receives about 10 spams per day
- About 28% of people answer spam emails
- About 90 BILLION spam mails are sent PER DAY
Spam is big business, and your email account is a potential accessory. The problem lies in that library staff tend to think hackers want the actual emails in the account, when rather what they are likely after is the account access. Spammers want to use your account to send spam.
What does this mean to me, Laura?
A few things. For instance, if your account is hacked, other problems can arise:
- Your account can be blacklisted or blocked because of spamming;
- The entire OPLIN mailserver IP can be blocked, because that’s where the spam is coming from;
- If your email account is blocked/blacklisted, your mail doesn’t get delivered;
- Your friends/families/coworkers/professional contacts start getting Viagra ads from your address. Not good.
So what should I do?
- Start by using a strong password. Try http://www.passwordmeter.com to check if it’s strong enough.
- Change your password often. Yes, it’s a pain. Do it anyway.
- Make sure that your computer is protected. This means making sure you take care (or your tech takes care) of doing Microsoft updates in a timely manner and keeping your anti-virus software updated. New viruses come out every day; is your virus software checking for new virus definitions frequently?
Email security is part of network security, and everyone is responsible for the health of the network. Time for a check up!
