Conspicuous Consumption 2.0: Why I think Blippy has a shot

Blippy [CrunchBase] is a social network that automatically shares your purchases. It's like Twitter, where your feed looks something like this:

philipkd spent $9.61 at Little Mexico Restaurant
pud spent $398.50 at AT&T Wireless
cte spent $127 at Zappos

When I explain this to people, the first reaction is always, "Why on earth would you share that?" However, to those who are actually on Blippy, the answer is obvious: people want to show off. The friends who I know on it (and myself) are insanely addicted to it.

In addition to the addiction potential, it also has an obvious business model. If people are talking exclusively about purchases, that just gives you an opportunity to insert highly targeted advertising. Not to mention all the analytics possibilities.

In addition to the addiction potential and obvious business model, its more trustworthy than Twitter. Twitter was supposed to be all about getting links from trusted sources, and yet now, nobody is sure what is real and what's not half of the time. Twitter often seems like a repeater cable or a me-too chain. On Blippy, users are putting their money where their mouths are.

Having said that, the real existential question is whether the service is compelling enough for enough people to overcome their privacy qualms. There's two points in favor of Blippy:

1. The future is heading toward more and more letting go. Six months ago, people gave me a skeptical eye when I said I used Mint.com to organize all my financial information. Now everybody is curious about it. Plus, the big picture is that security technology scales. Blippy and Mint.com have better security that your personal accountant. So it could be that the hesitation to Blippy is the same as the hesitation to Facebook and MySpace, where your children are actually safer spending an hour online than at the mall.

2. People take many more risks in real life to display wealth. What is a fancy-looking house with a visible front yard and luxury cars parked outside? It's an invitation. What is strutting down main street with your jewelry and expensive shoes? It's a status update. Blinging is timeless.

So the Blippy idea has a handful of solid starting aspects in its favor. Whether it succeeds or not, as it is with all new social networks, will then be matter of execution and chance.