So I read the article, and I downloaded the app, and I'm not going to log in, and I'm not going to sign up with facebook, and I'm not gonna play. Here's why:

1) The app advertises itself as a recommendation engine. Yet it wants my bank account. And only a few different banks. If it's using my financial data to link up to businesses, it should take a quickbooks file, but it doesn't wanna play.

2) It really seems to want my facebook data. Even if I knew the developer personally, I really want exactly zero links between Facebook and my bank account.

3) Before it's shown me anything it asks three times for my location. I don't even know what the app does.

4) When I do "take a tour" it seems like it mostly wants to tell me how much money I have in my bank account. Thanks, I know that. I'm not sure what that has to do with finding a decent fish taco.

5) No aspect of the article, the website or what I can see of the app gives me any real explanation about how I benefit from using it. Here's as close as I get: you’ll not only be able to track how you've been spending recently, and going forward, but also exactly how much you've spent at your favorite merchants. We tie your transactions back to real places, and aggregate your purchases over time, so you see just how much you’ve racked up at your local Starbucks. Yeah, I can do that with "ctrl-F starbucks" in Quickbooks.

Now, granted - I'm pushing the ragged edge of that "40-up" demographic that your friend doesn't care about. But it's paragraphs like this:

We think that we would be uniquely valuable to the conversation about the future and planning of cities. We are, for example, doing a project with a local economic development group in Ann Arbor. We will provide them with a macro level map of economic activity in Ann Arbor so they can make smarter decisions. We’ll say, “Here are our patterns, and when people come to Main Street this is typically the type of thing they will do or spend on a restaurant or an entertainment venue.”

Hey. I downloaded your app. You're asking me for my Facebook login and my bank account data. Aren't you even a tiny little bit interested in giving me something?

It's a moot point anyway - I'm with a credit union. It'll be the 12th of never before they'll give Wisely access to their data. So I couldn't use the app even if I wanted to.