Television shows, music, movies, good places to eat – these are all things that the typical five star review may be okay for, but it’s really the personal recommendation from someone whose opinion you trust that matters the most. If everyone likes that Mexican joint down the street but your buddy, who also prefers spicy salsa and homemade tortillas, says it’s no good, then you’re likely to skip out on dinner there and head across the street.
This is the basic idea behind Facebook’s once controversial “Instant Personalization” program, which brings the personal reviews, tastes, opinions and browsing habits of you and your friends to external websites. Today, that program has expanded once again to include Internet T.V. guide Clicker.
Clicker is one of the five awesome apps to find content on your Internet TV that we featured last week and Facebook’s Instant Personalization will help to add that personal touch that comes with friends’ recommendations.
Already, Facebook was working with a number of sites to offer personalized content. When the feature was first announced, it was working with Pandora, Yelp and Microsofts Docs.com, covering two of the bases mentioned above – food and music. Then, in September, the social network partnered up with movie review site Rotten Tomatoes. Following additions of Bing and Scribd, Clicker will make the seventh site to join the Instant Personalization program.
Moving on to something like Clicker is a smart next step for the program. The integration will show you what your friends are watching, what they’re doing on Clicker, and offer you recommendations based on your Facebook “Likes” and interests. As Facebook says in its introduction, “Now you can spend less time channel surfing and more time socializing–no remotes, listings or passwords required.”
What’s next for Instant Personalization? What do you rely on your friends for that you just don’t trust to the Internet? One thing that comes to mind is “What’s going on tonight?” instead “What’s on tonight?”, but is handled by Facebook’s own events feature. Will we see Instant Personalization come to Plancast or Upcoming?
