The idea behind Bump is simple: When you meet up with someone, instead of sharing printed business cards, you can just “bump” phones together, and your contact information will be traded.
I’ve been using the new 2.0 version, which adds a number of functions that will make it very useful for web workers. The contact information to be shared is shared as a profile, which is based on the data about you that you’ve probably already added to your contact list, but which can be edited. You can also create more than one profile, so you can easily choose what information you wish to share.
In addition, Bump 2.0 allows you to automatically connect with others on Facebook and LinkedIn, and follow others on Twitter. It’s possible to share contact details in only one direction if desired. You can also share photos, other people’s contact information, compare calendars and send invites. There’s also a chat function for communicating with people you’ve “bumped” in the past, although I haven’t tried this yet.
According to Bump’s FAQ, it requires that both phones have an active Internet connection, since it “matches” the two phones that are connecting through the cloud. You may also want to check Bump’s privacy policy.
The free Bump app is available for the iPhone (s aapl), iPod touch, iPad and Android (s goog), and the developers say that other mobile platforms are on the way. And yes, it’s possible for an iPhone user to connect with an Android user. There’s also an API, which will enable users to do things like send money via PayPal just by bumping phones.
Of course, the idea of sharing contacts wirelessly isn’t new. I seem to recall that my old Palm PDA (s palm) had a similar function. But the 2.0 version of Bump is pretty slick, and it will be quite useful once it becomes popular.
What apps do you use to swap contact details?
Related GigaOM Pro content (sub. req.): Are You Empowering Your Mobile Workforce?
