Interview with Blippy co-founder Philip Kaplan (invites)

Blippy.com takes sharing to a whole new level. When you sign up, you add accounts like iTunes, Amazon, or Netflix, and Blippy aggregates all of your purchases for your friends to see.

It's fun to see which apps people are buying for their iPhones, or which TV shows people are watching on Netflix, but then I discovered the "add debit/credit card" link. Even though I was nervous that I was giving up a bit of my privacy, I still thought it was interesting that anyone could comment, like, or even learn from my purchases. (I spend too much on cameras).

I wanted to find out more about Blippy, so I got some feedback from co-founder Philip Kaplan. Here's our dialog:

How would I explain Blippy to my 55-year-old Mom?

Kaplan, aka pud: Blippy makes it easy and fun to automatically tell people about the things you're buying.

You "connect" Blippy to one of your credit cards, and every time you use that card to buy something, your friends get to see where you were and what you bought. You can also use Blippy to automatically tell people about specific products you bought from online stores like Amazon and iTunes. (my mom just got an iphone & thus itunes, so i think this is a mom-worthy explanation!:)

Where did you get an idea to start a service like Blippy?

pud: Every time you use your credit card to buy something, there's potential for a really interesting social interaction.

You might be trying a new restaurant, buying a new gadget, or downloading new music from iTunes. Blippy makes it easy to share & discuss your favorite purchases with friends. Your private purchases stay private, but your other purchases become potentially much more interesting.

When I started adding services, I got a feeling deep inside that I was giving up a good portion of my privacy, but I didn't mind. I bet other users hear about your product and that is their wall to entry. How do you plan to nurture users into the site and make them feel comfortable sharing very personal information?

pud: Blippy makes it easy to only share the things you want to share. Many Blippy users connect only one credit card to Blippy, and use a different credit card for private purchases. Blippy also makes it easy to delete or edit your purchases, and control who gets to see them.

Most Blippy users are sharing. Some start out not sharing anything -- but once they see how much fun everyone else is having, they come around..!

What other services are you planning to add in the future?

pud: We're focused on making Blippy super fun and interesting for people. Discover interesting things other people are buying, learn more about your friends, see shopping trends, discover new music and movies, compare prices... we hope to make it fun and easy to do all of these things and more.

I like that each business or venue has their own page (http://blippy.com/business/name). Do you have plans to integrate Blippy into these core services like iTunes, Amazon, and Netflix to let customers earn coupons or rewards?

pud: That's something we've thought about. We might do something like that if our community wants it.

When will Britney Spears start sharing her updates on Blippy?

pud: If you ever run into her, please ask her for us!! :)

Update: Use the code ZDNET to get an invite to Blippy. It's good for 50 invites.