I will give a more detailed response later - out at the mo - but, harsh or not, insomniasexx and kleinbl00 are making very valid points, though I'm sure I'll have my two cents to throw in the ring when I can. Insom in particular points out the monetization of transaction data, which some particularly hysterical user on either here or reddit had insisted banks were already somehow doing - without the logic & application behind this app. (I highly doubt your banks are monetizing your transactions at this point. But with the introduction of apps like this I bet you they will begin to try - IF they can get the cost/benefits to scale. Big if. The CFPB would also probably clamp down on such activities like a motherfucker - but that can only happen when such activities become widespread and known.) I'll also raise right away that some of the objections made against yelp - that it's unverifiable - aren't valid. You can check in to a location on yelp which validates you were there; you can post photos of your meal which is pretty valid evidence unless you really are such a sad sucker you are faking photos for fake reviews on yelp. (The question then becomes: why? Why would the effort of such deception be worth it? When being paranoid/conspiracy theorist, I find it always good to ask why covert activities would be worth the imagined or perceived actions. Also: paranoia is, in many ways, twisted arrogance.) I'd say that with an article in Forbes your friend is doing pretty well for himself though; there's got to be plenty of buzz. However I trust yelp enough. So what if there's a single fake review on yelp? I'm confident most are real. I need a recommendation for dinner? Well, what kind of cuisine do I feel like tonight? I'll search it in yelp and go from there, or just search top rated restaurants. This strikes me as similar to Angie's list except less practical. And more easy to successfully monetize. Unlike many app developers, these guys are undoubtedly going to profit from their customers. I read that social media and similar sites' product is user data, and the problem is these sites are still figuring out who wants to know that Richard Nixon is one of my "inspirational people" on Facebook and how that's worth money. These guys are smartly capitalizing on their users. They are probably very smart and clever. I think they could take their smarts and clever and build a more useful app that consumers would want to use more and would cause more people to actually seriously consider letting the app "in" to the level that they want their app to get "in." Have you guys heard of waze? Now that's a cool crowd sourcing app.
1) My wife got a crazy 1-star review from someone on Yelp. She looked up the person and had no patients with a name anywhere close to the (very obviously normal) name. She messaged the person and said "Hi, sorry you had such a bad time - are you sure you're reviewing the correct business, since you appear to live 90 miles away?" The person wrote back saying, and I quote, "No the review is correct but I am deleting it because I hate negativity." 2) Yelp is evil. They totally shake businesses down. I want them to burn. 3) HOLY FUCK WAZE. Back between Apple Maps and Google Maps for iOS 5, we tried a few apps to not get lost. One of them was Waze. It will tell you to wander off on a side street for candy. And then it will give you an address that isn't where you're going. And then when you sit there for a while wondering where the fuck you are, it gives you more candy. Meanwhile it encourages texting while driving. 4) BUT SERIOUSLY, HOLY FUCK WAZE. And then Google bought them and integrated their engine into its traffic configuration. And now you can be driving merrily up the 405 at 50 mph following Google Maps and suddenly your phone says "In a quarter mile take the Sunset Blvd exit" and it doesn't matter that you're going 50 and you're 6 lanes away from the Sunset exit, all of a sudden half the cars in traffic veer over and nearly kill each other trying to get off the goddamn freeway RIGHT THE FUCK NOW. 5) NO, BUT I MEAN, HOLY FUCK WAZE. If Google self-driving cars are going to use Waze to figure out how to get around, we won't need Skynet. It'll be fucking Maximum Overdrive only voluntary. Sweet merciful jesus I have never met an app so dangerously sucktastic.
Waze refuses to work when the car is moving unless I lie to them. Okay okay okay I rarely use waze - when I have I have found it useful - I like the idea of crowdsourcing traffic. I haven't had the problems you have but I also don't drive in an area similar to yours at all. We have one major highway around here.
You inspired a short conversation at the bar about whether it is possible to lie to a thing without a soul. Sadly it was quickly determined that lying is an action of the speaker regardless of the audience but I found it an interesting consideration.
Btw, my pal has no idea I posted this and my comments are unrelated to his product. Thanks for the feedback. Also, Waze is pretty cool. My wife loves it.I highly doubt your banks are monetizing your transactions at this point.
Most people assume that Visa and MC have the data for all their card products, but as you know it's the issuing banks which have this data. Furthermore, there are thousands of credit card processing companies out there, making the data available even more watered down. The only card issuer that controls both the cards issued and collects the data from the processing side is Amex. They absolutely leverage this aggregate data to merchants for marketing purposes and refer to it as a "closed loop." The larger card issuers on the V/MC side also sell their aggregate data. So, it's not absurd to think that your spending behavior is for sale. It is.
Great points, ref. I would especially love to hear any insights related to your knowledge of the banking / financial industry.