Blippy Tells The World What You Bought

[mkrishnan]

(CNN) -- In Philip Kaplan's world, no credit card purchase is private -- not even the $70.06 "sexy gift" he bought from a gay-themed shop called "Does Your Mother Know." He posted that transaction online.

Kaplan is the co-founder of a new site called Blippy. On the site, which launched last week, people enter their credit card information and Blippy automatically sends out short, public "blips" of information about what people are buying -- including the prices of the items and where they were bought.

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When people ask me about Twitter, I claim (this is my personal opinion) that Twitter is fundamentally different in mentality from social networking sites like Facebook, because it's not based on a culture of privacy -- I know people who make their Twitter feeds private, and I follow a couple of them, but they're in the vast minority. Maybe 2 of the 50 people I follow have private feeds. Most everyone is on Twitter saying things they're comfortable saying in public, and so the issues that arise with privacy on Facebook -- not wanting your boss to see your drunk pictures, etc -- just don't arise. I think this is the best thing, for me, about Twitter.

If anything, this idea is an even more boldfaced extension of that countercurrent to the push for increased online privacy. I'm not sure I'd do it... it's pretty interesting, though.