I just got off the phone with Jason Knight, the CEO of a startup called Wesabe, which is a financial site that uses the wisdom of crowds to help you get more bang for your buck.

I know you're impressed by the fact that CEOs take my calls, but the fact is Jason takes anyone's calls via an 800# you can find on the Wesabe site. Regardless of what you or I might think of Wesabe itself, I think this is a great idea and one more companies should follow. (I'm not giving you my number, though.)

OK, so what exactly are we talking about here? I'm going to explain as best I can and I've also invited Jason to correct me or to add anything that I've forgotten. Here goes...

Wesabe allows you to track your finances online, in the same way that other financial software lets you track accounts, set budgets, etc. If that's all Wesabe offered, you might think "big deal," right?

Wesabe's differentiation point is that it takes users' data and, completely anonymously it should be mentioned, pools it in such a way that you can learn from the data of the Wesabe community as a whole. For example, you could track your cell phone bills through Wesabe and then compare what you pay to what other Wesabe members are paying. By doing so, you might find out you're getting a bad deal and be spurred to make a change in carriers or to call your current carrier and say "WTF?" Or maybe you'd find something as simple as the fact that you spend way more on groceries in an average week than someone else in your area with similar living circumstancs. In the end, Wesabe's usefulness to you is in helping you save money by comparing your financial picture to those of others and to make changes that keep more cash in your pocket.

I won't go too much into the technology behind Wesabe, but at a basic level you "tag" each account or expenditure, and so does everyone else in the community, which is how Wesabe can do some aggregating of data.

Another interesting aspect of Wesabe are the tips. Tips can be written by anyone in the Wesabe community, and, while anyone can look at them, Wesabe uses its technology to make the extra effort to see that you get tips relevant to your situation. For example, if you live in Chicago and have a health-club membership, you might see a tip from someone else in the area that talks about how they saved $100 by switching from X club to Y club. The goal being to put information in front of you that helps you make good choices related to your specific spending patterns.

Jason asked me if, having talked to him about Wesabe, I would now be more likely to sign up and participate. I told him I was a little squirrelly about my financial data, that it worried me a bit to put too much online. I also said I thought this might be a barrier to getting others to use the service. He stressed the security of the site, most importantly the fact that your data is completely anonymous, that not even Wesabe can tap into your specific accounts or account numbers based on the information that you provide. Logically, I completely believe him, but am still unsure---I can't put my finger on it; it's sort of like how my wife throws a check into the bank's ATM and trusts they'll get it right; I need a little more control. On the other hand, I have an online stock trading account with thousands of dollars in it; that's more dangerous than a Wesabe membership could possibly be. Point is, people can be irrational about money, so that could be a hurdle for these guys.

Wesabe accounts are free for a more limited number of accounts, or $4.99 per month for a more substantial "Pro" setup. If you sign up and upload at least one of your accounts before the year's out, you can be a "Pro" for free all through 2007.

One last note: the name. I saw it and immediately thought of Wasabi sauce. It has nothing to do with that. It is pronounced We-SAH-Bay, which is sort of a Spanglish way of saying "We know". (In Spanish, "Usted sabe" means "you know"---replace the "usted" with "we" and you get "We sabe" or "we know", get it?)

Wesabe has gotten some nice mentions from Wired, Lifehacker & Boingboing, among others, so they're riding high on the whole social networking buzz that's the rage these days. If you think the "wisdom of crowds" might keep you from spending your money like a drunken sailor, I'd suggest you give it a look.