When we all grew up we were taught that we should share.
Share our toys, share our feelings, share responsibility, share our thoughts, share our wealth. Sharing is healthy. Sharing is what nice, well balanced, good people do.
Then along came the interweb and social media.
We instantaneously shared information, thoughts and material via email. We began sharing our views on blogs like this!
We started sharing things we had for sale through Ebay.
We then shared with other people our travel experiences through sites like TripAdvisor.
Business contacts were shared via LinkedIn.
Our videos then were shared through YouTube, and available to everyone on the planet with a web connection. Over a billion video views a day to be precise.
These days it seems that we share almost everything about ourselves on the web. We’ve become share-a-holics.
Through social media platforms such as Facebook (7 million Australian users and growing!) we started sharing even more personal information.
We started sharing our eating habits, daily routines, TV shows we watched, stores we shopped in and even what we fed the dog that morning.
Then along came Twitter. We started sharing real time thoughts, feelings and news, as well as what we’re doing and where we are at any given moment.
How could we possibly share any more? Well, today my own question was answered when I read about Blippy.
In short, Blippy is Twitter for retail. Users share every transaction they make with others, with Blippy describing it on their site; ‘as a fun and easy way to see and discuss the things people are buying’.
How does it work?
Blippy asks people to share their transaction information by being linked to their credit card to automatically reveal the things people buy. If users register a credit card on the site, every transaction bought on the card would be displayed to their Blippy friends.
It can also track transactions through a range of retailers. Already retail brands like Amazon, iTunes, Blockbuster, Wine Library, Zappos and Ebay have signed up.
Can you imagine telling the world, or your followers at least, what you spent your money on today, which shops you went to and how much you spent?
‘Paul spent $16.95 today at iTunes on a Passion Pit album’. Scary, but not true ( I can’t claim to be that ‘in’ when it comes to music).
Will it work?
Well, Blippy is backed by one of the co-founders of Twitter and they’re deadly serious about its potential. Since launching last month it already has 13,000 users.
Will people be willing to share even more information, particularly detailed financial information, about themselves?
I’m not so sure.
What do you think?
Paul Cornwell is a Partner at BCM
I have an opinion, but I’m going to keep it to myself!
Ha – obviously designed by a male with no insight into the fact that no woman wants to broadcast what she bought and how much it cost. Almost universal conversation with husband, partner, significant other goes -” No this isn’t new – bought it on sale ages ago!” One of those permissable little white lies.
Blippy’s ability to get people to share their transactions took a hit in the last week when the worst case scenario occurred and the credit card numbers of some Blippy members had become viewable via Google search results and its cache for nearly three months due to a “technical oversight” by Blippy. Ouch.