Google has bought Bump, a mobile file sharing company that lets people exchange photos, music, vidoes and files by ‘bumping’ phones. The app, which has more than 100 million iPhone users, also enables an Android phone to ‘bump’ with an iPhone. The app works by exchanging information gathered signals from phones and sent them to […]
Google has bought Bump, a mobile file sharing company that lets people exchange photos, music, vidoes and files by ‘bumping’ phones.
The app, which has more than 100 million iPhone users, also enables an Android phone to ‘bump’ with an iPhone.
The app works by exchanging information gathered signals from phones and sent them to its servers, where it matched them with other phones sending similar signals.
Neither company disclosed financial terms of the deal, although the All Things Digital site quoted a source as saying the sale was worth $30 million to $60 million.
David Lieb, CEO and co-founder of Bump, made the announcement in a blog post today, writing: “We strive to create experiences that feel like magic, enabled behind the scene with innovations in math, data processing, and algorithms,” wrote Lieb. “So we couldn’t be more thrilled to join Google, a company that shares our belief that the application of computing to difficult problems can fundamentally change the way that we interact with one another and the world.”
He also tweeted, “The next chapter begins today. Bump’s been acquired by Google.”
The deal also give Google ownership of Flock, a photo-sharing app that combines photos taken by users, their friends and family and puts them into a shared album.
Flock uses location technology and algorithms to determine that a group of friends is taking photographs at the same place and invite each friend to contribute photos to a joint album.
He said, for now, both Bump and Flock will continue to work as they have. “Stay tuned for future updates,” Lieb added.
The acquisition follows Apple’s purchase of wireless file-sharing tool, AirDrop, as part of the new iPhone software.
Read the Bump blog post here
Watch this video showing how Bump works below:
