There are so many ways to connect with friends online nowadays – friending on Facebook, following on Twitter, checking in at different locations and tagging friends. And now, sharing TV shows or programming that one is watching at any given time. The new IntoNow iPhone app is one of the newest ways to connect online as users can “connect with your friends around the shows you love.” Similar to the iPhone app Shazam that identifies the song a user is listening to, IntoNow does the same thing for television and movies. By identifying specific shows, episodes, or one-time programs like sporting events and political talks, users can then share what they’re watching on Facebook or Twitter.

Reviews of the new iPhone app are all positive right now, with users describing the product as “amazing,” “impressive,” and working “perfectly.” And MG Siegler for TechCrunch described his reaction to the IntoNow app as “amazed to the point that I was dumbfounded.” The app is getting such great feedback because it scans all live channels and brings results to users in realtime – as well as uses a content catalog with 140 million minutes of TV. And with the option to share what one is watching on Facebook or Twitter, users can also see what friends are watching, comment on different shows, learn about any new episodes or special broadcasts popular at a given time, or discover new shows that they wouldn’t have thought to watch before.

So what does this mean as yet another way to share and connect online? Like checking in or status updates on Twitter, IntoNow provides an immediate and direct channel for users to share what they’re doing at all time. While this can be fun and make people feel like they’re part of a larger whole – watching the SuperBowl, for example, and knowing who of their friends are watching as well – there is always the risk of oversharing and damaging one’s online reputation. This app offers many positives including recommendations for new shows to watch, reminders of a special news program one may have forgotten about, or general discussion about shows that users know other friends are watching. The positives for this app seem great – it’s just important for parents to make sure their kids are smart about how they use IntoNow and, as usual, never connect with people online whom they don’t know offline.

Is this app something you or your kids might use? Would your kids be interested in connecting with friends through IntoNow?