Musing and Gadgets

Blippy

Twitter started by allowing to share what you are doing, services like Gowalla, Foursquare, Brightkite lets you tell people where you are doing it. Blippy then takes the idea of sharing to the next level and allows you to share what you brought and how much you spent.

The way Blippy works is when you sign up you can connect to various sites including, Amazon, Itunes, Audible, you can also enter a credit card number and connect that to Blippy. When ever you buy from one of those sites or cards what you buy and how much you spent shows up on Blippy Now you might say that's crazy, I am not giving my credit card number to a site I just discovered. The creators of the site thought of this problem before hand and behind their site is the same program that is used by Mint and many banks with the corresponding security measures. The second thing is you only share what you want, for example at this point I am only sharing what I purchase on Amazon, Itunes and Audible. I have chosen not to add a credit card at this time. Finally, you can turn off sharing for specific items, so if you are buying a gift for someone you can remove it from your shared items.

I have been using Blippy for almost two weeks now and its fun to see what other people have brought and occasionally it can be helpful, however its probably something I will look at only once in awhile. The biggest problem is like Louis Gray said, most people live boring lives, when it comes to what they buy. Occasionally, I suspect my interest in Blippy will grow, especially when a new product is about to be release just to see who are the true early adopters. Also as more friends join, the more interesting it may become, of course if they are friends you already shop with you already know what they buy. Blippy is one of those web applications that are fun to try and are amusing for a short period of time, but I am not sure it has staying power. There is nothing wrong with the site per say it does what it advertise, however I not sure what it advertise is what people are looking for. Even if people accept that it is secure, I am not sure that most people have the desire to share what they brought with the world. Of course I could be wrong. What do you think, would you use Blippy, let me know and if you do sign up for Blippy, please follow me under the user id of klandwehr.