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Swipely Gives Us New Ways to Share Embarrassing Purchases

by Amar Toor on May 13, 2010 at 06:30 AM

A peek at Swipely's interface
Yesterday, the world of social shopping got a little more crowded, with the debut of Swipely, a network that, for the most part, borrows from Blippy's "Facebook for credit card purchases." Users can share purchases made with specified credit cards, and can sync their Gmail accounts with their Swipely profiles, enabling automatic forwarding of receipts from online purchases. There are, however, a few differences between the two sites -- and Swipely is doing its best to highlight them.

The network, launching in an invite-only test run this week, is aiming to shore up some of the security leaks that have recently plagued Blippy, leading to the inadvertent exposure of users' credit card information. According to the New York Times, Swipely executives are seeking to distance themselves from Blippy's blunder by heavily promoting the site's bank-level encryption system, and by trumpeting the fact that the network has already been tested by third-party security experts like VeriSign and Trustee. The site has also decided against publishing how much users spend on individual purchases, choosing instead to focus on the product or service itself, where it was purchased, and buyers' opinions. As Swipely chief Angus Davis explains, "We think those questions are much more valuable and engaging."

When Blippy launched, we were intrigued by the apparently imminent nexus of social networking and personal finance. Now that we've had some time to mull it over, however, we're admittedly more concerned about the trend. Sure, people should always retain the right to share whatever they want, and to risk leaking confidential information if they so desire. Security risks aside, though, should we really feel compelled to share everything?

What's next, a social network to share each other's last wills? What about prostate exams? Should we tell the world about those, too? We shouldn't use Facebook's laissez-faire standards of personal transparency as an excuse to apply social networking principles to inherently non-social contexts -- which, depending on your philosophy, could very well include credit card expenditures. [From: New York Times]

Tags: banking, blippy, CreditCards, personal finance, PersonalFinance, shopping, SocialNetworking, SocialShopping, swipely, top, web

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