Daily Mobile Industry Snippets!
Sequoia-backed Bump Technologies Inc. is closing in on 10 million downloads for its nifty contact and data-sharing app. With iPhone and iPod Touch sales estimated at 80 million, this means the app is on more than 10 percent of Apple’s phones.
The app let you literally bump two phones together and pass contact information like phone numbers, names and e-mail addresses between them.
But it was a feature that was easy to duplicate, and hence, to overcome the risk of becoming a feature of someone else’s product, Bump opened up and became a platform by launching an application programming interface (API). The hope is that Bump can find a business model by providing its core technology to other companies to power all kinds of physical data sharing, whether it’s trading virtual coins in a game, contact information on a business card or even payments. The company recently launched a Facebook integration that lets users friend each other on the spot to take advantage of that. A Twitter integration that lets you follow a person will come shortly.
Source:
http://mobile.venturebeat.com/2010/03/08/bump-10-million/
Tags: apple, BUMP, bump technologies, iPhone, ipod touch, mobile app, mobile applications