12_Sharing_Blippy

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Speaker: Ashvin Kumar, CEO of Blippy Whats Ashvin Tweeting? rss url="http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/18782224.rss" link="true" number="5" Date: Thursday May 6, 2010. Materials: Andreas Weigend, Dan Goodwin, and Rob Cosgriff created an 17-min mp3 (34MB, bit.ly/SDRblippy) with their thoughts on the game changing nature of Blippy. Also check out [|bit.ly/weigendblippy] and facebook.com/socialdatarevolution for discussion

__Introduction__
[|Blippy] is a site recently profiled by [|Time] that allows you to link your credit card (as well as itunes, etc.) to your online profile and broadcast your purchases [|(screenshot)]. What is Blippy Tweeting? rss url="http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/95802291.rss" link="true" number="5"

=__Blippy has inspired a lot of controversy, in particularly there were 12 important and contentious topics from the class__=

1. “The future has much more impact on the present than the past”
Pro: Con:
 * You would much rather know where your friends are going out tonight then where they went last night
 * Future data is actionable, it can change what you are do in the present
 * Data from the past more reliable, people often lie about what they will do
 * Things don't change that quickly. An accurate picture of the past can often be a very good guide to the future.

 2. "Aggregated Data is more valuable than granular data"
Pro: Con:
 * People do really interesting things with granular data, find ways to use details the data collector never thought of
 * It probably depends what you want to do with the data
 * More significant insights drawn form aggregate data
 * Hard to detail with granular data "data deluge" problems

 3. "Facebook may not exist in 10 years, but you will take your facebook identity with you everywhere"
Pro: Con:
 *  Facebook will become a layer of the internet
 * Your friends, profile, etc. took you a long time to amass, that is an identity you dont want to have to recreate
 * Facebook connect gaining a lot of traction
 * People said the same of a lot of sites (do you still use your aol profile?)
 * Site want to build their own user bases (gmail, yahoo, etc. have competing networks based upon email contacts, Linkedin has competing social profile)

 4. "We share 2x more personal information on the internet each year, and will continue to do so"
Pro: Con:
 * [|Zuckerberg's law] (Facebook founder)
 * People used to complain about using their real name online, now share pictures, relationships, contact information etc.
 * Their is a value proposition, as companies can offer you more and more benefits from sharing personal information
 * Trend towards sharing medical records, etc. online
 * People far more reluctant to share medical records etc.
 * The low hanging fruit has already been picked
 * How much real information do people share? Usually,its self selected and self serving information

 5. Good companies create ecosystems, then let others add value to their customers
Pro: Con:
 * Facebook apps
 * Iphone apps
 * Companies should create the most general ecosystem, then see what people can do with their product
 * Blippy releasing API in just 2 weeks, very early
 * Its a bit lazy, companies need to provide a value proposition for their customers on their own
 * If all you have is a platform, easier for competitors to come in an offer a better product
 * Apps can capture the profit, not you. Look at Zynga's profitability vs. facebook

 6. Structured information is far more valuable then unstructured data
Pro: Con:
 * Technologies to understand unstructured data still in infancy
 * Twitter for example, has very few apps associated with it
 * Blippy has very structured data, therefore valuable, lots of interesting ways to manipulate it
 * Palantir and other companies have done very interesting things with unstructured data
 * Ultimately, most human information is unstructured, to learn how to use it is critical

 7. Privacy was a temporary phenomenon. There was no privacy in history, and their wont be any in the future
Pro Con:
 * "The current generation is never unconnected. They’re never losing touch with their friends. So we’re going back to a more normal place, historically. If you look at human history, the idea that you would drift through life, going from new relation to new relation, that’s very new. It’s just the 20th century.Zeynep Tufiki
 * We never had privacy in the past, and we rapidly voluntarily give it up online
 * People are confusing a minority of people who want to share everything with the vast majority that share very little on the internet
 * Privacy matters more than ever, since internet is just a copy machine, preserving information forever
 * There is a different between information being public and easily searchable and accessable. For example, where my car is is public information, however I wouldn't want anyone in California to be able to easily look it up (thiefs etc., especially if their could cross-reference with my credit card purchases of plane tickets)

8. Privacy doesn't matter
Pro: Con:
 * People just really dont care about their privacy
 * If you give people a good value proposition, they will easily sacrifice privacy
 * People do really care about privacy
 * Many pay to have unlisted numbers
 * Facebook allows privacy, we create our image. If people couldn't hide the bad, would they really use the service?
 * Customers were pretty upset with[| Blippy's privacy leaks]

 9. Consumer internet is NOT about solving a problem
Pro: Con:
 * Its about creating a new market
 * What problem does twitter solve
 * Twitter solves out need to be social, for belonging
 * Blippy addresses want to show off? Be cool in what we buy? Ego?

 10. Blippy is not about money and purchases, its about sharing
Pro: Con:
 * Popular features like what you buy at itunes are not about the amount spent
 * The amount spent in very prominently displayed on the site
 * Why would you look at someones profile if not to get ideas for things to buy?

**11. Amazon.com will be gone in ten years**
Pro: Con:
 * Amazon, much like Facebook, is likely to become a layer of the internet whereby individuals are able to buy anything online at anytime using their amazon.com profile
 * This would streamline transactions across the web and make it drastically easier for buyers and sellers on the web
 * The E-commerce space is extremely fragmented with many companies focused on niche markets

12. Blippy provides a platform for users to shamelessly show off conspicuous purchases
Pro: Con:
 * Users are able to discover purchases on items they didn't know existed thereby boosting commercialism as such items are later purchased by these users
 * Can often lead to discussion on some of the lesser known items/locations
 * Creates a lot of noise for users and doesn't necessarily add any value for potential users

Nedu Ottih cottih@stanford.edu Michael Paulus mpaulus@stanford.edu