How do you Bump?
We love hearing from our users. Whether it’s the DJ in DC who uses Bump to distribute links to his promo mix or the Barber in Chicago who makes sure his patrons have his contact info, it is always great to see people using Bump around the world.
We also love to listen to what people are saying on Twitter and Facebook. Today we came across this cool post on Twitter showing these people using Bump:
The best is when we see people we don’t know using Bump around town.
So send us an email or tweet about how you use Bump, and keep spreading the Bump!
Celebrate National Fist Bump Day with Bump!
Tomorrow (Wednesday June 3rd) is the one year anniversary of then-candidate Barack Obama’s famous televised fist bump with the future First Lady. We’ve teamed up with the folks over at NationalFistBumpDay.com to spread the fist bump love tomorrow.
Check out NationalFistBumpDay.com and their hip t-shirts, download Bump for your iPhone or iPod Touch, and knock some knuckles tomorrow.
Like our app icon?
The recent explosion of Bump downloads has resulted in lots of great feedback in the last couple of weeks. We’ve heard from a lot of you about how you like our App icon artwork, so I wanted to give the Bump bump (compare to the “Colbert bump”) to a couple of players that made it happen:
99designs.com : We sourced our icon design using one of the coolest websites on the internet. 99designs lets you post a description of what you want and an amount you are willing to pay for it, and then almost immediately, a talented community of graphic designers starts submitting entries. You then give feedback and rate the designs you like best, and the designers adapt their entries accordingly. In just a matter of days you can get dozens of designs, and you only pay for the winning design. Check it out.
O.C. Priyanto : O.C. was the winner of our 99designs contest and designed our amazing artwork. If you like his work, you should look him up on 99designs or email him directly (you can get his email address on our “about us” page)
We rewrote our privacy policy
It has become apparent that our privacy policy is confusing. Your privacy and security are really important to us so I have rewritten it in normal English (it was previously written in lawyer). Key highlights:
- We do not collect or store any of your contact information.
- We won’t spam you or any of your contacts, ever.
Read the full privacy policy here: http://www.bumptechnologies.com/privacy.phtml
Please contact us if you have any questions, comments, concerns or feedback (our email is bumptechnologies@gmail.com). We really appreciate all the time people have taken to try Bump and give us feedback.
Jake
Couldn’t have picked a better #1B winner
I just got off the phone with Connor, the winner of the Billionth App Countdown, and I have to say, I couldn’t have picked a better winner. What a polite, intelligent, and informed kid. At Bump Technologies LLC, we are trying to make the way we interact with mobile devices simpler and more intuitive, and Connor represents the generation that is going to see that happen.
And as an engineer, I’m happy to report that Connor plans to take some programming classes in high school next year 
The Bump Heard Round the World
Bump Technologies LLC got a great phone call this morning from Apple. 1 Billion applications have been downloaded on the iTunes App Store since it launched 9 months ago, and guess what, BumpTM was #10^9!!!
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/04/24appstore.html?sr=hotnews
Connor, thanks for downloading BumpTM, we hope you like it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Thank you for sending in so many good questions. We have added a frequently asked questions section to the product page to share more information on BumpTM. Keep sending us questions and we will keep answering them
Jake Mintz
Co-founder, Bump Technologies LLC
Q: How does BumpTM work?
A: There are two parts to BumpTM: the app running on your device and a smart matching algorithm running on our servers in the cloud. The app on your phone uses the phone’s sensors to literally “feel” the bump, and it sends that info up to the cloud. The matching algorithm listens to the bumps from phones around the world and pairs up phones that felt the same bump. Then we just route the contact information between the two phones in each pair.
Q: No way. What if somebody else bumps at the same time?
A: Way. We use various techniques to limit the pool of potential matches, including location information and characteristics of the bump event. If you are bumping in a particularly dense area (ex, at a conference), and we cannot resolve a unique match after a single bump, we’ll just ask you to bump again. Our CTO has a PhD in Quantum Mechanics and can show the math behind that, but we suggest downloading BumpTM and trying it yourself!
Q: Is BumpTM secure?
A: When we built BumpTM, our number one priority was creating the best possible user experience we could. Security of your personal information is a huge part of that experience. First, all communications between your phone and our servers are encrypted and sent using https – the same encryption that is used for online banking. Second, the nice thing about BumpTM is that *you* are in control of deciding with whom you share your information. You don’t have to worry about anyone being able to get at your information unless you physically bump your phone with theirs. Finally, we will never share any of your personal information with any third parties. Check out our privacy policy for more details: www.bumptechnologies.com/privacy.phtml
Q: What happens to my contact information?
A: When you bump, if we find a match with a phone that felt the same bump, our servers ask each phone to send up the contact information each user chose to share, but nothing more. If and only if both users then confirm that the match is indeed correct will the contact information be sent down to the other person.
Q: Will BumpTM be free forever?
A: BumpTM is most useable when everyone else has it. We want to get BumpTM on to as many phones as possible so that no one ever has to manually type in a phone number again. To that end, we plan to offer the basic version of BumpTM free of charge for the entire foreseeable future.
Q: This must cost you something to run. How do you make money?
A: Yes, it does. We are working to finalize the premium version of BumpTM, which will add the ability to bump photos and multiple contacts at once, as well as the ability to create multiple profiles (work, personal, school, etc) from which you can quickly choose to share depending on the situation. We’ll charge a small, one-time fee to download the premium version.
Q: Cool, but doesn’t this only work between two iPhones?
A: So far, we’ve only released BumpTM for iPhone and iPod Touch, yes. But we are working to bring BumpTM to many other platforms in the near future. Today, there are several other phones that include the sensors that BumpTM needs to feel bumps, but in the next few years, the vast majority of new phones will have these sensors. We plan to offer BumpTM on all of them, and BumpTM will work between any two of them.
New Video Voiceovers
Many thanks to professional voiceover actor and Bump™ user Doug Turkel for generously recording new voiceovers for our videos. It was hard to let go of the more than 10,000 views on the old video, but we’re pretty confident that Doug’s voice will bring that and more to the new ones.
Check out Doug’s other work. It’s pretty cool of someone to offer their services for free to a startup like us.
Install Bump™ in seconds
We were just joking over here at Bump HQ that we should hold a race to see which is faster: 1) exchanging phone numbers the old-fashioned way by reading out the number, typing in the name, calling the other person, and then having them type in your name, or 2) downloading Bump™ from iTunes.
Well, we didn’t actually race, but we did time how long it takes to download Bump™ from iTunes. On 3G it clocks in at about 12 seconds; 6 seconds on WiFi.
So next time you meet someone who doesn’t have Bump™, just ask them to download it on the spot. It will save you both time and hassle.
Bump™ is live!
If you are reading this, you most likely already know that Bump™ has gone live. We officially launched on iTunes on Friday afternoon, and it’s been great hearing about Bump spreading around the world. People are bumping all over the globe: US, Mexico, Russia, UK, Venezuela, Brazil, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland, Turkey, Japan, China, Australia…you name it. Even the Canary Islands!
Keep spreading the word!
