Trends in Oversharing: Social Payments and Swipely

Posted on Thursday, 20th May 2010 by Timothy Bell

Oh boy. What follows is a rant from a non-believer. So, take it with a grain of salt.

There’s this hot new trend on the horizon that folks like The Wall Street Journal are calling “social payments.” (Because anything with the word “social” in front of it has got to be edgy and relevant, right? Bob in communications really thinks this could “go viral.”) The idea? For everything you buy–whether it’s an inflatable kiddie pool, a package of tube socks or a case of Enzyte–you’ll now have the option of sharing it with friends, family, co-workers and strangers. It’s conspicuous consumption 2.0, and it’s the perfect solution for anyone who wants to take decades of effort spent desperately trying to keep stuff like credit card statements and spending habits a matter of privacy and kiss it all goodbye.

So, why is this going to work? According to the experts (i.e. those who are actually trying to pull this off, like Swipely, and their army of financial backers, such as Index Ventures, First Round Capital, Greylock Partners, Lowercase Capital and other glitterati from the tech ventures space), they’re going to be “adding value” to every credit card swipe. Every single purchase on your Visa, MasterCard, Amex or whatever it is you’ve got in your wallet will now be a conversation piece. Swipely is still in private beta, so I haven’t had a chance to see it in action, but one can only imagine that it’s going to be something like a cross between the Facebook News Feed and your wife going through your credit card statements and asking, “When the hell did we spend $500 in Las Vegas?!”

For example, let’s say you pop on down to Starbucks and try one of those new Your-Way-Frappes (or, if you’d rather call it by its clunkier official name: “However-You-Want-It” Frappucino Drinks). By the time you sit down at the table with your character-defining customized coffee drink (”See, I got two shots of espresso but with extra sugar. Because I’m bold, with an undertone of sweetness,”) you can pull up your smartphone and join the convo about your recent five dollar beverage purchase. Your old college roommate will have chimed in, “Hey man, tell me how that is! I’ve been meaning to try it, but I’ve been waiting for some other schlemiel to waste his money on it first.” And the Starbucks CEO can send you a quick automated thanks for your patronage.

Or, maybe you swipe your card at the theater and settle in for a nice viewing of “Furry Vengeance” and by the time the previews are over, you realize that four of your buddies who “used to think you were cool” have un-friended you.

Or, maybe you walk into a dealership and drop a wad on a Bugatti Veyron and suddenly, old flames are sending your winks and pokes. (”Get a load of this guy. He’s loaded!”)

In this way, it’s a bit like Yelp. It’s a forum for on-the-go mini-reviews and social discourse on commercial minutiae. Your working the worldwide room, so to speak, and telling everyone where you mingle and what you think of it. In other words, it’s a great way for companies to get some free market research. To that end, it’s obvious where the “value added” is for marketers. But what’s in it for you? It’s hard to say.

There are some burning questions that the notion of “social payments” brings up, at least for me:

Shouldn’t they be paying us for this?

You know when you walk into the mall or something and they’ve got Simon representatives handing out surveys about your shopping habits? And when you’re done, they give you like a $5 gift certificate for Orange Julius? That’s fine and fair. First of all, those are anonymous surveys. The purpose is transparent. And the payoff is decent ($5 for five minutes of your time). But now, they expect us to give up the goods for free? We’ve already seen a huge backlash against Facebook’s attempts to harvest the sweet, sweet golden personal data from their millions of users. So, why should anyone be expected to hop on board with a brand new thang that does the same but gives hardly anything in return?

Is this safe?

I’m not paranoid about credit card security. But then again, I’ve never had my identity stolen. In a way, stuff like social payments may actually be beneficial for credit card security. If you’ve got your friends and family watching your credit card activity, it’ll be easier for them to spot something fishy. (”Hey, uh, Dan, it says that you just bought a plane ticket to Afghanistan from Montréal–Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport. Doesn’t seem right to me…”). But that’s not the real danger. As we’ve learned from Blippy, which accidentally exposed the credit and debit card numbers of over 200 users, technology can only be trusted as far as you can throw it. Sensitive personal and financial data is a bit like radioactive waste. You can seal it up and sequester it as “securely” as you want, but the fact of the matter is that the more that’s out there, the greater the chances of a spill. The fallout from just one improbable disaster will cause irreparable damage.

What does this say about society?

Remember when John Cusack and Zach Braff used to pick up chicks by making them mix tapes? That’s how we used to connect. That’s how we could convey our emotions and feelings for each other and expose our hopes and fears when words failed us. We found identity through the songs and artists that spoke to us, seemingly whispering private revelations directly into our ears through those big, dorky headphones.

Fast forward a few decades and we still haven’t been able to frame the contents of our souls with mere words. We’re making baby steps, though. Now, we can represent the totality of our existence by giving 140 character responses to queries like “What are you doing?”

But for some, that’s still too much of a challenge. Social payments to the rescue! Talk is cheap. Let’s see what’s in your shopping cart.

If we live in a world where publishing your bank statement can be seen as a valuable social experience, then it means that we have given in to the marketing machines and we really, really, really are defining ourselves by what we buy. As someone who’s watched Fight Club twice, that seems kind of scary to me.

That’s my opinion. I think the whole thing is silly. But then again, I’m no businessman. I’m no Wall Street investor and I’m definitely not a tech wiz. Guys like Anton Commissaris, Chris Sacca and Keith Rabois (who hail from such successes as Mint.com, Google and Paypal, respectively) seem to be convinced, however. They are obviously way smarter than I am and they’ve put their money behind businesses like Swipely. So, there must be something I’m missing here. Anyone have any idea of what it could be? Let me know in the comments.

Post img c/o Polina Sergeeva

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