For most iPhone applications, why is this better than the built-in GameKit, which allows for peer-to-peer discoverability over bluetooth and WiFi without any active internet connectivity?

I could see an argument for cross-platform compatibility, as GameKit is iPhone-specific.

That said, is the service being provided sufficiently difficult to implement that it warrants paying (and relying on) an external service? How likely is it that an open source version of the server/client could be produced?

Two main reasons: 1) BT does not work quickly or reliably for ad-hoc connections. Have you tried using GameKit? It takes >45 seconds to ad-hoc pair (if BT is cold) and does not always work and 2) BT is very unreliable across platforms.

But requires an internet connection but is fast and reliable compared to the alternative. Time will tell if that is a more compelling compromise.

A lot of the applications using the Bump API are built on the cloud, so they would be useless without internet anyways.

Shameless plug: if you think this is cool come work with us! http://bu.mp/jobs.html There are even more exciting things on the horizon (well we think so at least).

I wonder if "bumping money" would be possible with this API. I think that could be huge.

That's such an awesome idea, I have no clue why it wasn't obvious to me before (That is to say, a mark of all brilliant ideas). This requires physical contact, very good on battery power, and actually creates an incentive for personal micro-transactions.

what is the incentive?

I'd say the novelty of it is enough of an incentive for such an idea. Also, bumping two phones together carries lower psychological cost than handing someone your hard-earned cash and I would expect people to have less qualms about lending/returning/trading small sums of money this way.

Yeah, while this seems to have some weird geeky appeal, it's still way harder than just pulling out a dollar and handing it to someone.

I've been in many scenarios (a lan party comes to mind) where there were multiple people who had either large bills or no cash at all, and yet we needed to buy things like beer or pizza.

This makes it very easy for people to transact small amounts of money (ideally free through paypal) using this technology. People may forget their cash, but they never forget their phone. Neat.

Brian

The API identifies the phone you bumped with, and then gives the app a channel to send messages between them. You can do pretty much anything with that. :)

Is there a fee for using the API?

The api will be free for most people. If you use it for revenue generating transactions or it is core to your app (wouldn't be useful without it) we ask for a revenue share (but no up front fee). Otherwise, as long as you don't hit our generous usage limits, it is free. The one exception is that contact sharing apps aren't allowed yet, although we have a plan to allow that in the next release.

Have thought about this a lot too

In case anyone missed the trend of Bump showing up in R&B videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQJccwiMxpU

I love it

I would like to see the DropBox app use the Bump API

How would that work? Meaning what would you expect it to do?

so you can throw your phone up at the clouds and have files appear in your dropbox?

Congrats guys, looks good. I wonder if any UofC NVC ideas will make use of your API.

Brian