Ever wonder what your friends just bought with their credit card? What they just downloaded from iTunes? If you do, then Twitter believes its has the answer.
In an invitation-only beta test, the social media site has introduced Blippy, a service that publishes users’ credit card transactions online. Users can link a card and accounts at sites like iTunes and Amazon to the Blippy site, which automatically provides a stream of purchases, Twitter style.
Like other uses of social media, the potential for financial institutions of sites such as Blippy is at best an emerging vision, though banks and their customers have recently shown an appetite for peer comparisons and information on how similar people are spending money.
Blippy’s details include the name of the person, how much that person bought and where. For Amazon and iTunes, it also shows what was bought. Late last week, a sample display on Blippy.com/beta showed that “Ashvin” spend $16.47 at Amazon “four minutes ago,” “Kathleen” spent $45.62 at Trader Joe’s “15 minutes ago,” and “Sammy” spent $11.12 at iTunes “two hours ago” on All the President’s Men, The Girlfriend Experience by Steven Soderbergh and ARGH—Augmented Reality Ghost Hunter.
Others can follow the stream and participants can choose to make their purchases private or public. Another feature to be added shortly will allow Blippy to automatically update Twitter and Facebook when users make purchases.
