It was some days ago when I was introduced to Glynk. It's a social networking app. My first thought was 'Who needs another social network?' We already have an overdose of them, isn't it?
But when I tried Glynk, I realized that it had its unique points and a whole different purpose to serve. The basic idea behind Glynk is that it helps users discover and interact with people with similar interests. And this is done automatically, without any interference or manipulation by the user. The result is, when you use Glynk, you do come across people whose interests, thoughts, preferences match yours. If we look at our Facebook feed, it has posts from people we are connected too, whether willingly or because we had no choice but to accept the friend request. As a result, the Facebook feed becomes cluttered with posts we have no interest in. And often, it feels like a duty to interact with some of those posts otherwise our 'friends' might feel offended.
No such hassle in Glynk. Nobody whose interests don't match yours can contact you. So the Glynk feed remains free of clutter.
Anyway, let me begin from the beginning. Glynk is a free app that can be downloaded from Google Play. (The web portal would be launched soon too.) When the app is downloaded and installed, you can't use it unless you login using your Facebook ID. I know, many users will hesitate in logging into any other app or website using their Facebook credentials. But allowing only Facebook login is actually a security measure that the team of Glynk has adopted to keep fake profiles out. Only people who have minimum 50 friends are allowed on Glynk. And as I was told, Facebook has plenty of safety measures that make using Facebook ID to login into third party apps and websites safe. Besides, Glynk makes it clear that the app won't post anything on Facebook without user permission.
Once the registration is complete, the app will automatically pull your Facebook profile picture. To start using the service, you first have to select your interests. These include broad topics like Books, Automobiles, Causes, Technology etc. Once you have selected your interests, the app serves you some questions related to those interests. These are simple and interesting 'which you like best' kind of questions. With every answer, you will be shown the popularity chart of the given options to that question. I enjoyed answering those questions quite a lot. And whenever my answer proved to match the most popular choice, I enjoyed it even more.
Anyway, once you are through the questions (you don't need to answer all), the Glynk algorithms will go to work and builds up the network of like-minded people for you. For example, when I finished answering questions, I was told that the app had found 422 people who thought like me. By tapping at an arrow, I could browse through the list of all of them. And if you want, you can tap on any user and follow them or send them a message. The important thing here is that you can't message a user unless you have over 80% compatibility. When I tried this restriction, I was shown a message that said I can't send a message to that person unless I am in her network or we follow each other. I could browse through her posts though.
The restriction that only only those who are well compatible with you can send message to you will feel like a welcome relief to those who are fed up with unwelcome strangers or unwanted friends sending direct messages on facebook and twitter.
Anyway, the Home Page shows the posts related to your chosen interest. You can choose to see posts from Everyone or only Like-Minded. The feed, as far as I could understand, shows the posts of your interest, instead of focussing on the people you follow. You can comment on any post and also follow it to receive notification for future comments on it.
The second tab is Like-Minded. This is the list of people in your network and you can follow them or see their posts from here.
The third tab is Opinions. These contain similar questions as were asked before building your network. If you skipped any question, you'll find it here. You can scroll on to find more questions and express your opinion by selecting your preferences from among the options given. By tapping at the button at the bottom right corner, you can select the Interest whose questions you want to see.
Anyway, the Follow button on this menu bar is very useful. Tapping it opens up a screen with four tabs. First one shows the interests you follow. you can edit your interest preferences here. The second tab shows the Posts that you have chosen to follow. The third tab shows the list of people you are following and the fourth tab shows the list of people that are following you. You can tap on the name of any of these users to go to their profile and check out their posts and interests.
Now for the all important thing, how to post on Glynk. There's a nice pink button at the bottom bar. When you tap it, you are asked to specify the interest in which you want to post. You can also add new interests here by tapping on the Plus button. Anyway, once you choose the Interest in which you want to post, the text input field opens up. Above this field is a dropdown menu with options Ask A Question, Recommend Something, Share an Opinion, Start a Discussion. Tap on the appropriate option from these, write you message and post. There's an Interest button on top right side of this screen too in case you want to change to another interest.
Once you have posted your messaged, other people following the same interest can comment on it or follow it.
Glynk is as yet available only as an Android app. But it's web portal is going to be launched soon too. Also, there are plans get more and more college students involved, enabling them to connect with their fellow students on the basis of common interests. Other future plans for Glynk include giving users the ability to post about planned events. Not just formal events like those of Facebook, but informal events information and invitations. For example, inviting your favourite Glynkers for coffee. As of now, I didn't notice any advertisement on Glynk. But advertisements and sponsored posts in future can't be ruled out. The interest groups of Glynk are actually great opportunity for advertisers as they will make it easy to display the ads to target audience. For example, being a novelist, I'm definitely feeling tempted to post about my own book on the Books interest group. As more writers join Glynk, the Books interest feed might end up being crowded with self-promoting posts from authors.
Overall, I quite enjoy using Glynk. It's great to have a social networking space that helps you connect with people with same interests as you. Of course, the groups on Facebook can help in that too. But on Facebook, you are also compelled to connect with people that have nothing in common with you. But Glynk automatically builds up a network of like-minded people for every user so they can interact and discuss about things that really interest them like books, celebrities, gadgets etc.
The interface of Glynk discourages users to make random posts or publish personal photos etc. And that's something many would appreciate as it cuts the clutter. Some may mind it though and consider it less interesting. Glynk posts don't yet have any emoticons or stickers.
The Glynk app has an intuitive and convenient user interface with pleasing colours. Overall, quite a nice initiatives that will please many of those who are getting tired of Facebook and Twitter clutter and crowd. If you too are one of them, Glynk definitely deserves checking out.
You can download the Glynk app on Google Play.
Go, Glynk it!
