I’ve recently learned about a new social media network that allows you to share your credit card purchases with your family, friends or strangers. My initial reaction was … Um, Why?

The service is called Blippy. It’s currently in beta, but it has already been labeled “The Twitter for Credit Card Purchases”. To use the service, you connect one of your credit cards with your Blippy account. Then, each time you make a purchase using that card, your friends and/or network of strangers will see what you purchased and where you made the purchase. Sounds fancy. And stupid. And noisy. And potentially dangerous.

I’m sure some social media ‘guru’ will identify a higher purpose for this service, but I can’t. And I tried. Even if I assumed that most people wouldn’t share their purchasing history with perfect strangers, I still can’t find the value in passively (automatically) sharing your purchases in real-time detail, to anyone. If I called my Mom and told her about every purchase I made, she would block my number. And I would do the same. If the purchase is notable, I tend to phone, text or email the people that would be interested (a very short list of people). Imagine all of your friends, coworkers, clients and a few random strangers walking up to you on the street and saying “I just purchased a $3.96 latte at Starbucks.” At some point you’ll respond “So what!” or “You’re at Starbucks again?”.

Imagine a world where everyone is sharing every single detail of their day, simply because innovations in technology allow them to do so (i.e. for kicks and giggles)? The more noise created, the harder it is for you, as an entrepreneur, to get your message through the tsunami of irrelevant data and noise. Now more than ever, it is important for entrepreneurs and business owners to provide authentic engagement and value to your target audience. Before you share any information on a social network, particularly for business purposes, ask yourself:

1. Is this something I think my audience will want to know?
2. Is distributing this information important to meeting my business goal(s) or mission?

If the answer is no to both questions, think twice about sharing.

Source: Introducing a Twitter for Credit Card Purchases (New York Times)

One Response to “Introducing Blippy (Subtitled: It’s Silly Season)”

1. Tweets that mention Introducing Blippy (Subtitled: It’s Silly Season) : Websmith Group | Website Development, Strategy, Enhancement -- Topsy.com says:

   December 17, 2009 at 8:54 am

   [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Kishau Rogers, Kishau Rogers. Kishau Rogers said: New Post: Introducing Blippy (Subtitled: It’s Silly Season) http://bit.ly/7EJPqS [...]

   Reply
2. Money management says:

   December 19, 2009 at 6:24 am

   It was a very interesting post thanks for writing it!

   Reply