Swipely Gets Funding To Compete With Blippy; People Scratch Their Heads

One of the amazing things about social media is that every time someone comes up with an idea, there is almost inevitably a competitor that pops up with the exact same idea, or something darn close.  Sometimes you can brush it off as mere coincidence, and other times you have to figure one of them definitely used the idea of the first one as the seed for their own company.  While normally that it isn’t a big deal, you have to wonder why they would use one of the worst site ideas ever created as the embryo for their own service.

“Our mission is to fundamentally change the way consumers shop and share by adding value to every swipe,” said Angus Davis, Founder and CEO of Swipely. “Our service will transform everyday purchases at restaurants, movies or online retailers into conversations with friends, personalized recommendations and opportunities to save money.”

Oh goody … it’s another Blippy.

To be fair, unlike Blippy, Swipely does not share the amount you spent.  However, the question once again is do people really have an overwhelming compunction to discuss what they go out and purchase?  I barely discuss purchases I make with my family let alone my friends, and when it comes to social contacts?  Yeah, no desire whatsoever.

Well, apparently someone believes in this market because Blippy has received over $11 million in funding, and Swipely received $7.5 million in venture capital last week.  Previously the company had already raised $1 million, so apparently Blippy getting funding again means that Swipely must also get funding.

I just don’t get it.  Not only is the whole service category nuts, but it was just last month that credit card numbers were found on Google that had been leaked by Blippy. So is now the proper time to be adding funding to any company in this category?  This led to so many people deleting their accounts that Blippy had to upgrade the account deletion portion of its site.  Does this strike you as some place people should be throwing their money?

I admit the whole concept is lost on me, and I might be off here, but I simply see no reason why these sites are receiving any funding at all.  I’ll try not to laugh too hard when they both end up failing.

What say you?  Do you have any  interest in being social with your purchases?