That's a pretty poor response to a valid question. While the tone of the question was harsher than I think was warranted, the question of "why is this something I should care about?" is something that should be at the forefront of every product developer and investor's mind.
While you may have intended your question as a question, that's not the impression it gave. My first reading of it was as a rudely sarcastic dismissal -- "obviously you don't know what you're talking about" -- and I was about to downvote it on grounds of incivility until I noticed that you were the author and realized that was probably not how you intended it to be read.
He was just asking an honest question and wanted to know if the person actually used it, since that would probably provide a deeper explanation of the utility of Bump than any personal opinion of his would. Let's not get too uptight around here people.
I know what he meant. My point was that what he meant isn't what it sounded like at first glance (yay mixed metaphors!) and that's probably why daeken responded as he did.
Utility is number of users times how much it helps each one. This is the sort of app that helps a very large number of people, but only briefly each time. It's sort of like Google in that respect. I'm not sure how many users Bump has, because this is one of those companies like Dropbox that grows so fast that the last number I heard is always way off, but many millions. They may have more users than anyone else we've funded.
They're also like Google in that most of the hard work is behind the scenes, which tends to affect users' perception of how much the app is doing. To an inexperienced programmer it might seem like it wouldn't be hard to build a search engine-- and in fact it isn't hard to write a crawler and build an index. What makes it hard to build the actual Google is (a) the scale on which they operate and (b) the refinements they employ beyond merely searching an index. It's basically the same with Bump. They have to operate on a large scale, and to work reliably they have to deal with all sorts of weird edge cases.
I don't think this really answers the question of what Bump brings to the table, though. There's no doubt in my mind that Bump is growing like crazy, or that they're doing really hard work to make that happen and provide a good product, but... none of this matters to me as a user. What I care about is what Bump gives me that other products/services don't. What is that?
Oy. The reason I didn't explain what Bump does is precisely the question you thought it was improper to ask him: since he's a Bump user, he already knows.
What Bump does is mutually authenticate two smartphone users by having them bump their phones together, and correlating the accelerometer readings. On top of authentication you can build all sorts of things, starting with exchanging contact info. The hard/critical part is reliability.
Sorry, I think we're talking past each other here. I understand what Bump does/is, but what I (and I believe the original asker) are missing is where the value is. While I can come up with a million use cases for this, e.g. bumping for payments, bumping to share photos, etc, I believe you're in a fairly unique position to be able to express what the core value proposition of the company -- now and moving forward -- is and why it matters to the users. I don't think focusing on the how or what does that.
Your confusion is really puzzling to me. You seem to understand why it's useful (ability to share contact info, payments, photo sharing), but how is that different from the "value proposition"? As far as I can tell that's the value proposition! It's like Tri Flow for device communication, making it simpler and easier and faster and more convenient. Sounds like value to me.
I could come up with a dozen ways in which Google could use their assets to do new things and potentially increase shareholder value; that doesn't mean they'll do it. pg is in a fairly unique position to tell us how Bump can add value, not just some random speculation, e.g. from myself.
What sort of confuses me is that normally he is shouting from the rooftops about how a startup changes a user's life, but that's absent. I don't get it, especially because I am bullish on Bump.
Occupy has lots of things in common with startups, which we talk specifically about in the story. "Disruptive. Small-d democratic. Transparent. Tech savvy. Design savvy. Local and global."
The IPO part is a joke, sorry the humor was lost on you.
This list seems like an odd mix of pandering, genuinely exciting companies, and companies that did something interesting years ago and rank for still existing.
Companies that have existed for years can still do innovative things. We've highlighted those new efforts in the entries. Jawbone, for example, has been around for ages but last year had a huge hit with the Jambox. In that entry Farhad Manjoo also writes about the Up, which was flying off shelves until they found a defect and pulled it.
Would you mind explaining Reddit's inclusion in the same way? Certainly the write-up of Reddit in this piece doesn't seem to highlight anything new or innovative (unless campaigning against SOPA counts).
Cheers
(I feel slightly bad for picking upon Reddit, they were just the first example that came to mind when glancing at the list.)
The first thing to note is that Reddit was not on the main list of the 50 Most Innovative. It was included in list of top 10 for Media, which is where we recognize innovators in a more general way within different industries. The main focus of Reddit's entry, after explaining the site to someone who might never have heard of it before, were the "Ask Me Anything" Q&As. Those interviews were far more social and newsworthy than most Q&As that appeared in msm. Although the series didn't start last year, it began gaining traction and became more newsworthy during 2011. Many innovations are slow to mature, or even fail despite their unique approach. The Reddit entry recognized that those Q&As have come into their own.
Here's a better example, and it does suck to single anyone out, especially one that I use and like:
Dropbox - the only thing they've done recently was take small evolutionary steps on the innovation they showed 5 years ago when they launched.
There was so little to say about what else they've done that you basically just mention they're growing and making money. Which is great, but does growth and revenue make them the 22nd most innovative company in the world?
Why are cloud and consumers criteria at all? That's why this list feels like such an odd mix - there shouldn't have to be anyone from the cloud, if they don't make the cut weighed against everything else in the entire world then do a separate list on innovation in the cloud where they can be recognized for their achievements without compromise.
Those aren't criteria, but the fact that they have designed so-called cloud storage in a useful way that is accessible to the masses is why they were included on the list. I also think that it is important that a cloud company be included in the list. So I wonder why you think there shouldn't have been anyone from the cloud?
I don't think the cloud specifically should be excluded or even a factor in and of itself, I think the most innovative companies in the world are by definition the ones who are innovating the most, cloud or otherwise.
Twitter belongs on the suspect list too, how can they still be one of the most innovative companies in the world for a product largely unchanged in 5 years, during which time a jaw bone was printed and transplanted into a person?
YC is pretty remarkable and it starts at the top with PG. I also feel YC wouldn't be what it is today without HN as it extends the YC community just enough to make a huge difference... setting itself apart from the other accelerators. Congrats to all involved.
Congrats and Thank you Paul - for helping out the passionate inventors push their ideas to the next level - what Paul has done to the startup community in the Bay Area, is what Jim Harbaugh did to the bay area for football :)
