BumpIn is a social networking tool that facilitates interactions between people with similar interests. It allows people to discover each other on the Internet, strike up live conversations and exchange information of mutual interest. It is implemented as a browser plugin that occupies the user’s peripheral vision at the corner of an Internet browser.

History

BumpIn is the creation of Dr. Umar Saif, who is associated with MIT and Lahore University of Management Sciences.<ref> Massachussets Institute of Technology Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory - Umar Saif</ref>

BumpIn Alpha was released on October 8th 2007. An update was released on November 21st 2007. A further upgrade titled Bumpin v 0.4.2 was released on June 16th 2008. It incorporated new features including Emoticons, Recommend a Link, Top 5 matches, Scrollbar and Copy/Paste.

Functionality

Whenever a user opts to “Bumpin” to other Internet surfers, the similarity engine updates his profile to find people and content on the Internet that matches his interests. The similarity could be on the basis of presence on the same website, similar browsing history and similar web searches. The similarity with other people is displayed alongside their names to provide an icebreaker to initiate conversation.

Bumpin is distinguished from competitors by its scalable architecture which allows scaling up of the system to millions of users without requiring an overhaul of the system.<ref> Killer Startups - BumpIn Review</ref>

The tool is available for Firefox,<ref> Mozilla Firefox Add-On BumpIn Sidebar</ref> Internet Explorer and can be used live through the Bumpin site.

Privacy

Bumpin is described as an opt-in service since data is only collected when the user specifies his consent. Secure identification is automated through the download of a Cookie. Once the user opts in,data regarding the browser and search queries is collected for matching purposes. As a principle, data from conversations with others is not retained, except for technical and legal reasons.

References

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See also

Mozilla Firefox

List of Firefox extensions

External links

BumpIn Home

BumpIn Video on YouTube