BumpIn is an interesting local startup in the Social Browsing Space that recently, and very quietly, started their public beta. They have created a Firefox extension that shows up on the side of your Firefox browser window. The sidebar lets you see exactly who else is browsing the same webpage that you are looking at at any given time. What’s more, you can discover these people by similar interests, chat with them and make friends with them as well.

An interesting twist is that what you see in BumpIn happens live in front of you because of some “real-time” browser technology that powers it (there is some work with SmallTalk …

" />

Bumpin.com – Real-time collaborative browsing and socializing

October 10, 2007 7:53 am 1 comment

Share this Article

Author:

BumpIn is an interesting local startup in the Social Browsing Space that recently, and very quietly, started their public beta. They have created a Firefox extension that shows up on the side of your Firefox browser window. The sidebar lets you see exactly who else is browsing the same webpage that you are looking at at any given time. What’s more, you can discover these people by similar interests, chat with them and make friends with them as well.

An interesting twist is that what you see in BumpIn happens live in front of you because of some “real-time” browser technology that powers it (there is some work with SmallTalk in this area). You can see people enter and leave and join or leave the conversation. This theoretically makes the browsing experience much richer, because you can discuss a webpage and continue the conversation with the instantaneous community that happens to discover the same thing on the web.

BumpIn is a project that Dr. Umar Saif is actively involved in, and a number of LUMS students have been working with him for about a year or more to develop the software, some continuing to work on it after graduating. Whether or not LUMS is officially incubating this company is currently unknown.

BumpIn is operating in a fairly crowded space — other applications that do similar to exactly the same things include Me.Dium, Swarm, Flock, Eyebees and to some extent MeeboMe. What’s more, Mozilla Labs has already announced that they are also building The Coop, a social networking tool to be built into the next version of Firefox.

This creates challenges for BumpIn’s roadmap — more thoughts and a screenshot of BumpIn below

As exciting as this technology may seem (strictly from a technical point of view) BumpIn would have a challenge defining a business model. - based on a similar premise – has already identified the promise and demand of the Social Browsing market, and was acquired by eBay earlier this year.

However, outside of looking to sell the product to a bigger company, social annotation and browsing companies are sometimes positioned against the interests of the content publishers (i.e. the actual websites people form communities around).

The world of online content publishing is still based on counting unique visitors or click-through ratios, and social browsing products (atleast the ones similar to Me.dium) can potentially reduce those numbers, even though they increase the numbers that relate to attention, or the amount of time spent on a particular website. As (and if) advertising models mature enough to recognize attention over basic numbers, publishers would be happier to promote complementary products such as BumpIn.

Another significant area of value that BumpIn can tap into is social search. If BumpIn were to show people who browse through a similar stream of websites rather than individual sites, then if I am looking for something specific and poking in and out of sites, there is an incentive for me to also ask other people also doing a similar search — perhaps together we could find that item quicker, or share clues that help us browse the interweb with more relevance. Social search, integrated with Social Graphs (also something that could emerge in a year or so) could make the product more valuable.

Other than this, the trouble with general-purpose consumer use is that people may not feel comfortable browsing with an application that technically spies on you.

Lets open it up to your thoughts – would you feel excited following a cricket match at cricinfo while being able to chat with others who’re already there? What about other everyday situations (email?)

Go check out the beta at bumpin.com and write your review in the comments

Facebook comments:

1 Comment

  • Let’s go Umar, make some noise… and give me a login!

Recent Posts

  • Events General Mobile Apps Container Run a continuation of politically motivated apps

    Container Run a continuation of politically motivated apps

    First we had Angry Imran which brought smiles and some short lived fun for us during the election campaign. Then came Gullu Butt following the incident of Model Town Lahore, which stayed on top of charts (Pakistan play store) for quite some while. Also Gullu Butt made an update with having the famous “Aam Khaiyga” quote form Aamir Liaqat in which a character resembling Aamir Liaqt throws mangoes and the Gullu Butt character tries to catch them. Gullu butt currently has more than 100,000 Installs

    And now during this extremely politically tense situation which had the whole nation on its toes on 14th August we have another app continuing the …

    Read more →
  • Announcements Featured Startup General Meritaleem.com aims to help student make better decision regarding their future.

    Meritaleem.com aims to help student make better decision regarding their future.

    MeriTaleem.com aims to solve an age old problem for our students, where to go next?

    If you have just completed your primary school which college to pick, if you have completed your college which university to pick. There has always been lack of information or rather consolidated information regarding these questions. The best source till now has always been relatives and friends (mostly of your parents). So some uncle did CA and made a good living you should talk to him and decide, or daughter of my sister completed her medical and is practicing follow that career.

    The fact that online presence of our existing universities are limited and not …

    Read more →
  • General Mobile Apps Eccentria Technologies launches an app which shoots to the top of the charts

    Eccentria Technologies launches an app which shoots to the top of the charts

    Whoa!! this was quick so Eccentia technologies launched an app a few days ago called “Ajj Kia Pakaen” or what to cook today and today it has reached the top of charts for Pakistani Stores on iTunes and google play store.

    “Ajj Kia Pakaen” is the most common question asked at every house hold in the morning. The ladies of the family have a hard time deciding what to cook for the day. The app has a fun interface and is simple to use, you fire it up, and it gives you an option of what to cook for the day, if you like the option you can check the …

    Read more →
  • Coffee Session General Marketing/Adv

     

    Until a few years back we used to have closed groups and forums, which gathered the like minded people and anyone targeting the online audience would tap into that forum and market his/her services. So PakGamers , PakPassion initially even PakWheels used to be driven by members talking about what they loved, people used to create marketing and sales opportunities from within those discussions (so you could get a good router cheap or a gaming PC etc).
    The advent of facebook changed all that, most of the forum goers moved to the new social media. It also made a very attractive market place for some one who does not …

  • General Getting back

    Getting back

    I  have been out of blogging for a long long long time, a lot of things happening on personal front (including a little startup I have ben doing my self). However during my absence I met a lot of people who had followed GreenWhite at its peak, read the articles regularly.

    I had hope there would be some one else who would come ahead and cover everything going on and around us in the local tech world. There are some guys doing a great job, but for some reason I still could not find one source where I can go and read about everything, so my routine usually is to …

    Read more →
  • General Mobile Apps Software & I.T.

    GeniTeam launches official app for Pakistan Idol

    GeniITeam has successfully launched an official app for PakistanIdol. This is one of the first collaboration between a reality game show and a local app development company. I am sure a lot more would follow. Previously we have seen seenreport becoming the basis of mostly all channels citizen reporting system (Like Geo Dost). This is a healthy sign and with the advent of 3G round the corner it should become a business generator for our local firms.

    App allows you to follow the contestants that you like, promote them, comment on live feedback on an episode. It offers official content from the show since it is developed with partnership with …

    Read more →
  • General 10Pearls and National Geographic Release A Geography Challenge App

    10Pearls and National Geographic Release A Geography Challenge App

    10Pearls, one of the leading Pakistani IT companies, has recently added another feather to its cap. This time, in partnership with National Geographic, 10Pearls has released the new and improved GeoBee Challenge App – an interactive app to challenge and grow the geographic knowledge of the users.

    Each year thousands of schools in the United States participate in the National Geographic Bee using materials prepared by the National Geographic Society. The competition is designed to encourage geography in the classroom, ignite student interest in the world around them, and increase public awareness about geography. Schools with students in grades four through eight are eligible for this entertaining and challenging test of geographic knowledge. Now …

    Read more →
  • General 10Pearls Spins Off Game Plan8

    10Pearls Spins Off Game Plan8

    It’s heartening to see that Pakistani IT companies have now started to diversify themselves into non traditional areas, and are competing with global players in areas such as gaming. We have received information that 10Pearls, one of the leading  mobile and enterprise web development services companies in Pakistan, has spun-off a separate entity focused solely on developing and publishing casual mobile games.  The new entity, Game Plan8, will focus on creating 2D and 3D games for the iOS, Google Android, Kindle, Facebook and other platforms. Details can be seen on the company’s official press release at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/12/prweb11428177.htm

     …

    Read more →
  • General Telecom CCP Gives Guidelines Against Telecom Companies’ Deceptive Marketing

    CCP Gives Guidelines Against Telecom Companies’ Deceptive Marketing

    If only were there two things when it comes to the law, firstly the fear of breaking it and by passing the legal authority, and secondly, implementation of the law given full dedication, there would have been less competency and dishonesty in business and society. However, keeping good faith, the Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) has put forward “Deceptive Marketing Guidelines” which will maintain the Section 10 of the Competition Act, 2010. In order to enforce this part of the law and stop anti-competitive conduct on part of the telecom companies in advertising, the guidelines have been shared with Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) and other concerned telecommunication sector members, in …

    Read more →