When I was first introduced to the Bump App, I was very excited and eager to use it. Being the geek that I was/am, I loved the idea that you can literally “fist bump” your contact information to any iPhone/Android user (provided that the other person had the app as well). Being a small business owner/freelancer myself, it was a great idea to be tech savvy and provide your business contact information to someone instead of just passing them a business card. Some people would prefer the business card approach. To me, Bump was the answer I needed for a more tech-savvy individual.
In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, Bump is an app for the iPhone and Android smartphones and was acquired by Google in September 2013. The app allows users to share contact information, photos, videos, and other types of files by “bumping” two phones together (or fist-bumping). It’s been downloaded 125 million times, so you know that app is pretty popular. In January 2014, Google announced that the bump app was reportedly being rolled out to be shut down by February.
I’ve been using bump ever since I got my first iPhone. I loved it. I used it as much as I can to those that would want to use it with me. Even those that did not have the app, I highly recommended it to them. It was a great conversational piece as well as a tool to speak about technology, social networking, and the ability to interact with people.
Unofficially, I was Bump’s biggest brand ambassador.
Sadly, I found out mid-January that they were no longer supporting the app, nor making it available for use. I was devastated. Shocked. Surprised. I did not see that coming at all. To find out that Google is shutting both Flock and Bump down left a bad taste in my mouth. Just like with all other good things you hold on to, you don’t want to let it go, even if all you see is the other side of the story, and not necessarily thinking that maybe – JUST MAYBE – they’re going to do something better.
Better than Bump? Definitely worth considering. Technology is moving at a faster speed than business can cope with, so I don’t doubt that there will be bigger and better apps in the future. But is it going to be worth downloading? Who knows.
Maybe this is like seeing your kid go off to college – that separation that they’ll be on a world of their own, detached from you – and knowing that they’ll be bigger and better, and overall different, the next time you see them (unless they call you for money every week).
Or maybe this is like a caterpillar and its journey in morphing into a butterfly. Eh, too much analogy.
I will always be a brand ambassador, and hopefully I can be the same to their new products. But since Google is behind it, maybe or maybe not. Who knows.