Meet Biologic, The Strangest, Cutest Social Networking App Around [Review]

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biologic1.jpg
My Twitter stream. No, didn't know it looked like that either

Biologic is a – hmm, what is it exactly? It’s hard to describe. It’s not a Twitter client, although you can see Twitter with it. It’s not a Facebook client either, but your Facebook friends are all here if you want them to be. So what is it? The people who made it say it’s a “playful environment for exploring your friends’ activity streams from your favorite social networks.” Yeah, that covers it.

What Biologic does is allow you to view and explore your Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts in a unique new way. It’s strange, but deliberately so. Strange in a good way.

Your account details entered, Biologic downloads data from the social networks and displays it in squishy, floaty bubble-like microbiological cells.

The image at the top of this post shows my Twitter account viewed inside Biologic. All of the people I follow appear in this floating, bubbly structure. Floaty, bubbly music plays in the background. Tap on someone’s icon, and you zoom in to see their tweets. More bubbly stuff happens. To read a tweet, tap on it; the text will be displayed in a more traditional, non-bubblecentric format.

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Biologic showing a tweet
Yes, that's a tweet that is

The size and movement of the floaty bubbly things inside the cells is dictated by the data downloaded. People who tweet a lot get bigger cells. Stuff that has been Liked a lot, or Retweeted a lot, jiggles about more excitedly.

So, just to be clear: this is not a Twitter client. You should not be downloading this and expecting to replace TweetBot with it. There’s no way of telling which tweet is which before you tap, no way of seeing what’s recent and what’s old. It’s quite possible that the lack of feed context will drive you crazy.

And yet: Biologic is undeniably cute. It’s a data-toy, and as data-toys go, it’s fun. It downloads your social network data and displays it in a way you’ve never seen before. It gives you the chance to examine your feeds in a non-linear way, freed from the tyranny of the timeline.

Biologic options
You can turn off the floaty music if you want

Don’t expect it to be useful. Don’t expect it to change the way you use Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn. Don’t expect a productivity app. Biologic is none of these things. It’s a plaything, designed to help you play with your own social network. Perhaps you will notice things or people there that you haven’t noticed before. Perhaps you’ll end up at places on the internet you might have missed if you’d viewed a boring old timeline.

Give it a try. It’s free, so you have nothing to lose but a little bit of your time.

Pro: Free, unique, gives you a new perspective on your socialz.

Con: It’s free, what is there to moan about?

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