Cityglance makes daily commute a social activity.

We have a ton of social apps where you can make new friends based on many different parameters – movies liked, books read, places you’ve been to, things you’ve done (or are doing) etc. But here’s an app that makes everyday commute a place to make new friendships.

Cityglance, an app launched recently, converts your everyday commute into a social activity. So, every day as you go to work and come back home, you can find other people who are on the same route (using the same app) and ‘glance’ or send a private message – basically, connect with new people on your route.

The idea builds on the pattern of many social apps that connect you to another person through some common / shared feature (like a movie, place, interest, activity, occupation, hobby etc.) Only this time, the shared connection is a “travel route”. It’s an interesting take on how you see your commute.

Cityglance works like this simple online community where you can share two things:

• your route
• your thoughts / updates

Fast facts:

• You can sign-up to Cityglance using your Facebook account or email
• Your Cityglance dash looks like a Facebook feed. You see a list of posts made by your friends and others using Cityglance
• You can check-in with your route any time. When you check-in, the app shows a list of other people who commute on the same route.
• The “Glance” feature is similar to Facebook “poke”. You can “Glance” on someone and connect with them via Private Message too.

Pick a route, find fellow “Cityglancers” and connect with them.

When you pick a route (starting point, destination), Cityglance dives into its database of users and tells you how many people have picked that route. It shows you people who are on the route right now – so that you can ‘Glance’ at them (their profiles, basically) and even start a private conversation.

In many ways, Cityglance is a social community by itself. You can make new friends, manage friend requests, check out and post photos (or updates or just thoughts), and even search for a lost glance (which is searching for someone you saw on a commute in the past but don’t know the details of).

Cityglance can be two things: a dating app where it enables you to make a move on that fellow commuter you’ve wanted to talk to and/or it can be a PSA app where you can share details about the route, about the traffic snarls or about any breakdowns or malfunction that informs other regular commuters along the route.

For those of us worried about privacy, all route information (and personal information) can be set to private or public. This prevents people from randomly accessing information about you. However, the app works best when people share profile data.

“Glance” works like Facebook’s “poke”.

Features:

• auto geo-localization
• facebook sharing
• mark check-ins as private or public
• offline search (to find a glancer)
• private messaging
• share photos / updates
• like / comment on other people’s updates

Cityglance is currently available in the US and Europe, supporting over 400 cities. Apparently, all modes of transport are accounted for (subways, trams, buses).

While the concept is innovative, we’re looking at an app that needs more refinement.

Cityglance does provide a few other interesting, useful information. For instance, when you pick a start and end point for your commute, Cityglance computes the best route based on available data on the traffic and gives you the ones that take the shortest time.

Download Cityglance