It was a quiet Friday evening at home. My husband was out with friends. My one-year-old son was asleep in bed. It was the perfect time to rent a chick flick and curl up with a small tub of Cherry Garcia Low Fat Frozen Yogurt. The movie I wanted to see? Couples Retreat with the sometimes-funny Vince Vaughn. While this was a private night to escape the residual effects of a hectic week, the very next day I realized that I had inadvertently taken my secret movie preference public.
I got an e-mail message saying, "I want to see this film! Let us know if it's any good." Let "us" know if its any good? Who was he talking about, and how did he know about the movie? Oh, Blippy, my new best online friend (the social shopping network that is a "fun and easy way to see and discuss what everyone is buying"). When you register, you can enter your credit card information or account information from web services of your choice, such as Amazon, iTunes, and GoDaddy, so the people who are following you can check out what you bought and how much you spent (for the record, Couples Retreat was $4.99 on iTunes, and it's pretty funny).
If you're like many of the people I speak to about the latest new social media tools, you're probably shaking your head right now. You're probably wondering why in the world anyone would want to broadcast what they're purchasing. Or, as the Globe and Mail's Lisan Jutras recently wrote, you might even take Blippy's birth into the new media world as yet another uninteresting way to express ourselves, which is where Lisan was heading with this: "While these tools are ostensibly designed to open dialogue, they lack conversational finesse. Artistry."
I suppose I don't see a whole lot of artistry in my online world, so my expectations for Blippy were pretty low. I tried it out for research purposes, of course. Contrary to what you might read online, credit card purchases are only one element of what people are sharing on Blippy. For the most part, in my network, I see apps purchased from iTunes, movies rented on Netflix, and trinkets bought on eBay.
Although I don't buy that much (I'm more a geek lurker than a real shopper), I have to admit that seeing what my friends are buying is pretty interesting. Not only does it provide me with recommendations about what I should buy, it also helps me get to know some of these people a little better (as much as I'd love to spend face-to-face time with many of them, they don't live nearby and we're not - yet - pen pals).
While I understand the concern some people might have about a service like Blippy there are a few things to remember before you go on the attack. Blippy is an opt-in service, so don't use it if you don't like it. Blippy doesn't broadcast your credit card numbers to anyone. Moreover, you can keep your purchases private, so you have to accept who can see what you're buying (and you can choose what you want to share). There are lots of interesting opportunities for businesses, which could help Blippy have a viable future, and so far the service's users are loving it.
As for my Blippy settings, I only share what I buy on iTunes (which, again, is not a whole lot). At the end of the day, I suppose I don't really care if people know that my Friday nights often consist of a good chick flick. Now if we start talking about putting a web camera on Blippy so followers can check out just how much ice cream I eat while movie-watching, that's where I draw the line.