

Bump 3.0 launches today, pared down to just two features - dabent
http://venturebeat.com/2012/02/16/bump-3/

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MaxGabriel
Initial Impressions, before 3.0 becomes available:

Crap. My 'improvements to Bump' cover letter for their iOS internship is now
completely irrelevant. It'd be my guess that 3.0 will still feature an overlay
prompting first-time users to enable location sharing (I really like this
idea), but not the second screen showing what the user can do now that the
app's been streamlined to less features. That screen had major usability
issues based on the people I tested it with--people were frustrated to find
what they tapped on was not a button.

Based on what I've read of their iOS reviews, this could really help their
ratings. Lots of 1-star reviews about only sharing samples of music, having to
buy apps someone 'shared' to you, etc. This is probably fair--Bump atleast
gave the impression of promising those things.

Their new video is much better than their old one; I can't find the old one,
but it was narrated poorly, whereas the new video feels much more professional
and helps communicate their use-cases better, even though its still a little
hard for me to see two people wordlessly Bumping than sharing a phone number.

The new FAQ is really hard to read because the section headings (General,iOS,
Android) blend right in with the Qs.

I think the larger question though is where does this leave Bump's revenue
model? Bump's been experimenting with 'BumpStations' [1] and has prototypes in
their office. But does this streamlined feature set coordinate well with
expanding to NFC merchant stations, etc.?

[1] <http://www.quora.com/What-is-Bumps-business-model>

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bproper
Having the courage to look at the hard data and respond to what your users
want, even if it feels like a step backwards for the product, shows courage
and insight.

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kurtvarner
Sometimes the best iteration is removing most of your features. Kudos for
overcoming feature creep.

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Blocks8
Bump was a huge winner at SXSW two years ago. I think this release will help
with a strong comeback. It's still a pain exchanging information.

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technomancy
OK, raise your hand if you believe the decision to drop music sharing was
something they made on their own.

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rokhayakebe
I know this is counterintuitive, but I think people would pay more for a
simpler version. You can call it reverse Freemium; we'll give you less for
more.

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startupcto
And Bump is still not profitable.

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jmilloy
What do you mean by still? It wasn't profitable, it made changes, and now we
have to see what happens. It's a bit early to say it's still not profitable.

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startupcto
At version 3.0 and no clear indication of how they are able to monetize their
"network".

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ivankirigin
It is far harder to get traction to reach their scale than to make money from
your users when you have so many. They explicitly are focusing on growth.

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ameribrit27
Yes, focusing on growth to firmly establish their brand as the go-to phone-to-
phone sharing app. Network effects will help them keep that position once they
attain it.

Also focusing on user engagement, as they are narrowing down on solving needs
that are a) painful and b) frequent. They want users they've already attracted
to be firing up the app daily, not weekly or monthly.

