IDG Ventures checks out Glancee during Vator Box

Mobile way to discover who's around you with similar interests

Glancee is a way to discover people as Foursquare is for places. That's the analogy given by Andrea Vaccari, co-founder of CEO of the mobile discovery startup, during Vator Box.

Vaccari and co-founder Alberto Tretti presented their startup before guest host Alex Rosen, partner at IDG Ventures, during our recent Vator Box series, with hosts Ezra Roizena and Bambi Francisco. 

Glancee is a very cool iPhone (download here) and Android app (download here) that shows you the people nearby who have similar interests. By signing into Facebook Connect, Glancee takes your "likes" and compares them to other people's "likes" to find matches and similarities. People with similar interests are then shown to one another, depending on location. So, if you're in a coffee shop, you might get an alert from Glancee that someone with similar interests is nearby. You can then check them out on your phone and see what you have in common. 

The team has built a great user interface and as a user of the service, I must admit: It's addictive.

Watch our expert had to say about Glancee. Here are some highights.  

- Ezra noted that he likes things for different reasons and said that if he likes Pulp Fiction he might not like Quentin Tarantino. "How does your engine work in making recommendations of people with similar interests?" 

Andrea and Alberto explain that often people are connected to one another in ways they're not aware of. Glancee tries to expose those hidden connections. There are "tiny links" that connect people, and Glancee wants people to have those links so they can at least start conversations with one another.

- Alex asks how the company got started and what was the inspiration.

Andrea explains that he and his team are all foreigners and found it very inefficient to find and meet new people. They wanted to simplify the process for them.

- I asked about other interests beyond Facebook likes Glancee plans on collecting.

Alberto explains that the interests a person likes on Facebook likes is just a starting point. Eventually, they plan on integrating interests from other sites, like music you like on Last.fm or jobs you had and are listedon LinkedIn.

Overall, we agree that Glancee needed to find a way to get the product out to market, beyond its initial user base, which is currently small due to the fact that the service has yet to fully launch. Alex also recommended narrowing down the location aspects of the service, so a person could be alerted to someone similar in the same building rather than just in the same city. Andrea explained that Glancee was first released in Chicago, where they were located just two months ago. So, in places with more critical mass of people, geo-location targeting works much better. 

I won't give away the rest of the segment. Be sure to watch and hear Glancee's plans to expand and some ideas for monetization in the future.