An update on Glancee, a friend-finding app

A couple weeks ago I wrote a piece for Newsweek about Highlight and Glancee, two apps that combine GPS data with your Facebook profile so that you can find people who are physically nearby you and see who they are, what you have in common, and so on. Both apps were gearing up for SXSW, and Highlight was getting lots of hype from people who believed it would be the big "hit" of SXSW this year. That didn't happen.

But I touched base with Andrea Vaccari, CEO of Glancee, and he sent me an update about how Glancee did at SXSW, as follows:

* We passed 25K+ users and 50K+ messages, 8K people signed up at SXSW.

* 12K people used the app at SXSW, mostly 25-35 years old, 25% women.

* The iPhone seems to be much more popular than Android among the SXSWi crowd with an overwhelming 70/30 ratio.

* While some people installed the app as early as 6am, most people found out about Glancee during lunch break.

* The top 5 countries by number of downloads were: USA, Italy, UK, Japan, Germany.

* The average user browsed about 8 profiles, for a total of 100K profiles viewed.

* 2,200 people exchanged 10k messages, meaning 20% users actively engaged in conversations.

* Female users were more engaged in conversations than males but this is probably due to the fact that they were contacted more.

* 1,800 people started a new conversation, 18% women, so in proportion women were as much active starting conversations as guys.

* Top connectors started over 30 conversations and exchanged over 200 messages each.