Watch out GetGlue, IMDb’s mobile app adds check-ins & social features

Sharing your likes and dislikes about movies has always been popular online. Now Internet veteran IMDb is making it easier, announcing updated iOS and Android apps that makes sharing your big-screen tastes with Twitter and Facebook. The company also announced that its apps have been downloaded more than 40 million times since 2010.

Although around since 1990, IMDb has only had apps for the Android and Apple mobile devices  for the past two years. In a sign of the site’s mobile strength, users have downloaded the apps more than 20 million times on each mobile, for a total of more than 40 million downloads, the company said.  Also, in each of the past five months, the IMDb mobile apps and its mobile-optimized website have racked-up more 150 million visits.

IMDb’s revamped apps do for the big screen what companies like GetGlue, Miso, and upstart TV socialization app Zeebox, have accomplished for fans of the small screen: socialization. The update now lets movie fans announce to their Facebook and Twitter audience what movies they are watching and chat about the favorite flicks on mobile message boards. A new “More Like This” feature also allows app users to browse movie titles, and add interesting items to their watchlist.

The app updates are a response to customer desire for greater personalization and social features, IMDb founder and chief executive Col Needham said in a statement today. The top most-wanted new feature by customers was a mobile version of the site’s message boards, which have amassed 2.5 billion page views every year.

Fewer consumers may be attending theater showings in favor of online viewing, but movies remain a central topic for fierce debate and discussion. The news from IMDb only illustrates how the audience for movies has shifted from the neighborhood theater, to the desktop PC, and now to the tablet.

Via The Next Web