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Bump Technologies acquired by Google for estimated $30M
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MacNN Staff
Join Date: Jul 2012
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Bump, the contact and content-sharing app for iOS and Android triggered by bumping smartphones into each other, has been acquired by Google. The company, founded in 2008, will now become integrated into Google's existing teams, though the Bump app itself and a group photo sharing app called Flock will continue to operate for the moment.
Bump allowed for local communication between smartphones by the app recognizing other devices that "bumped" at the same time in its local area, with data being transferred by whatever connections were available to it. Though its usefulness has effectively been replicated with NFC, Bump could trigger on smartphones without it, and has been downloaded over 100 million times. A later app for photo sharing from the same team, Flock, pooled together photographs taken by members from a group from different devices into a single shared album. Bump Pay, another iOS app it launched early last year, took advantage of Bump's technology to offer money transfers between PayPal accounts.
Though the acquisition price is unknown, it is believed by All Things D that Bump sold for at least $30 million and as much as $60 million. It previously raised approximately $20 million from backers, with a report's sources suggesting Bump "was not a home run" compared to other successful investments.
"We strive to create experiences that feel like magic, enabled behind the scene with innovations in math, data processing, and algorithms," said CEO and cofounder David Lieb in a blog post. "We couldn't be more thrilled to join Google."
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Senior User
Join Date: Jan 2008
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Obvious, this was a move by Google not to expand but to thwart.
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Junior Member
Join Date: Jun 2007
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The awesomeness of Bump was the cross platform compatibility. Sadly I see that diminishing with this acquisition.
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Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Iowa
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and on that note, reminder to self: delete Bump app. To be honest, I've had it on my phone for a long time and never used it. Just not a burning need to send something to someone that can't be met by email or dropbox, especially since the other person needs Bump as well. Apple's P2P Airdrop will make this more "universal" since it is built in, and would have resulted in my deleting Bump when iOS7 comes out...
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Grizzled Veteran
Join Date: Nov 2006
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I read about it and never bother to download. Don't see any need for this .... I mean how many ways can you send stuffs to other party these days?... it's holy cow and mind boggling for the excessive amount of apps out there that does the same thing.
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Maitland, FL
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I did find it useful to exchange address info ... on the rare occasion I could find another Bump user. It was a pretty cool idea when it debuted, but as noted it got superseded pretty quickly, and will be outright replaced by AirDrop, so ... congrats on getting out while the getting was good, Bump.
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Charles Martin
MacNN Editor
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