Paypal Adds Innovative ‘Bump’ To Mobile Payment Suite | Hacker News Reader

Paypal Adds Innovative ‘Bump’ To Mobile Payment Suite

mobileinc.co.uk

44 pointspg42 comments

I don't get it. I mean, sure, the technology is cool. They have some kind of spatial tree with temporal information added to individual nodes so they can detect nearby bumps. I find that somewhat interesting (but there are more interesting problems abound).

But as an actual application, what? Maybe it's just because I don't have a phone. I don't see how it's much easier than just scrolling through a contacts list-- which, by the way, you can do anywhere, not just when you're next to the person-- or pulling out your wallet and giving the person the money as cash (which is usually how I've done it / seen it done-- and where there has been paypal involved, it's always been when we weren't next to each other). I could maybe see it being used as some kind of replacement for debit/credit cards, which are annoying. Simply nodding your phone towards a kiosk/reader would seem easier, even including the time it takes to start up the app and so on (then again, there is a reason I have to enter my PIN-- however, I could do this in line with the phone...). But, I can't imagine that ever happening (magstripe readers won a long time ago). What's so great about this?

One advantage is that I don't have to have your contact information, and I don't have to type out your email address.

So then have the "bump" action exchange contact information. Why limit it to something that has been solved for centuries? Transferring money to people you don't know is traditionally done with cash. Transferring contact information is generally more painful.

It does, that is the first/primary function of the app. This is just talking about a PayPal implementation of their API.

The point is that it is an easier way to connect with someone. And it may not be for everyone, but lots of people are bumping money already. We don't know whether they are doing that because it is easier, more fun, or the only option at the time. But they are doing it and that is what matters to us. :)

There is this broader problem we are trying to solve: you are standing right next to me and I want to give you something on my phone, or connect to you on some cloud service. How do I do that? If I want to send you a Facebook invitation is it easier to go home, search for you (and hopefully find you) and send a friend request, or just bump and not worry about remembering how to spell your name? If I want to send you a photo, is it easier to type your email address or pick it from my (1000s of) contacts, or just bump you? If you are standing right next to me, why should I have to type something in?

You can still send money using PayPal Mobile by typing in an email or selecting from your address book. But bump is an easy option if you prefer it.

I think I may have portrayed my view wrong, then. I don't have problem with the "bump" thing as a generic interaction. I can see it as a very handy way of doing certain things, like playing a game with a friend. At the moment I'd have to look for all nearby phones(/DSes, etc.) and figure out which one is my friend. Just nodding our phones together seems a great improvement. There are tons of other things I imagine it would be great for.

I do have a problem with its use for transferring money. It just seems pointless. That's what cash is for, and paypal is most useful because I can use it where cash is not an option. I don't see any benefit to using this kind of interaction here.

For it to be useful, we have to be in the same room, I'd have to not have any cash or cheques, or alternatively be required to use paypal. It also has to be something that has to happen soon, or else I could get cash later or use paypal regularly or something rather than going through the effort of us taking out our phones and looking like goofs. We also both have to already have the relevant app installed, with a compatible model of phone. I actually have to make sure of this, too-- I have to ask, "hey do you have that paypal app", etc., which takes more time. This is a situation I do not foresee happening very often at all. There are just so many limiting factors, and it's just so easy to have enough cash in my wallet.

The theory is that there are lots of transactions where you do not have cash or check (or would prefer not to use them). Some examples: your friend owes you money but does not have cash (yes, it does happen). You order food with coworkers and do not have cash (or change, we bump to pay people back for lunch almost every day). Or you are buying something off craigslist and want the security of PayPal rather than just giving someone cash (oops turns out it was counterfeit). Or you are doing a large transaction where check isn't accepted (>$100?) and don't have or want to carry that much cash.

Some people think this is a great idea, others not. Only time will tell. We would love for it to be successful, but have a lot of other things in the works as well. ;)

I can't speak for some of these (like craigslist-- until recently I have lived in very out of the way places). But for others, I have existing solutions that work well. For example, in the case of being owed money I just let them pay me back whenever. Generally it works out that maybe we go to play poker and he pays my buy-in in exchange for that lunch I bought him, or he grabs me a drink when he goes outside for a smoke, or some other timely, convenient thing.

Such is the case, I guess, for pretty much everything. Bump itself replaces things that already exist, but in its case it seems like it can do clearly better with few barriers to adoption (e.g. games), while with the paypal scheme it's not so clear. My reactionary tendencies pick up, "don't fix it if it ain't broke". But, you're right, time will tell. Just because the existing solutions seem perfectly fine doesn't mean Paypal's system won't become easy enough and commonplace enough for everyday use. Because, yes, it does have some advantages.

It still seems so pointless to me, but then I guess, so do/did a lot of established things.

I often don't have the exact cash I need to give someone. Do you?

Are you sure you aren't just trolling?

Exact cash rarely matters. If a friend of mine wants to get a soda at the machine, and all I have is a toonie, I'll give him the toonie [note: that's 2CAD, machines rarely go over 1.25CAD for a can of pop]. I'm a cheapskate, but it really doesn't matter in the end. I'll probably ask him for money if I'm short, too.

And, yes, I'm pretty sure I honestly believe that this isn't useful, and that I'm not making this belief up to start a fight. Why would I be confused on this matter?

This looks similar to most augmented reality apps; not terribly practical today, but with future interfaces it could be great. In 2022 when we have displays in glasses and full-body-tracking sensors, you'll be able to activate Paypal with an eye gesture, then make a tossing hand motion to send them money which they "catch".

Yes, I did just read Rainbows End...

Simplicity in a product can make or break functionality. I think the folks at http://bu.mp are awesome ;-D

Your contacts list might not contain your friend's PayPal email address, or it might not contain an email address at all. Bumping creates a unique identifier that connects all parties and their PayPal accounts where no such identifier previously existed. It is useful.

It is not unique if too many people are bumping at the same time (e.g. comic con or something).

I have to agree with you. It seems like a tremendous waste of resources, listening to and algorithmically calculating when, where, and between whom these transactions occur.

Seems like it's simply wrapping a transaction in an entirely extraneous layer with no visible benefit.

I think the smart thing about it is the workaround it provides for phones that don't have NFC functionality. NFC penetration is going to be way behind accelerometers for a while yet. Could be a good opportunity for mid-range/low-end handsets too.

Use cases - hmmm. Maybe the security of Paypal when buying things off Gumtree, a used car etc could be the benefit.

Having been around long enough to remember when nearly every PDA supported IrDA, I'd agree that the whole bump thingy seems like one really complicated (but very clever!) workaround.

I miss the promise of IrDA.

At the risk of sounding flamebait - you don't have a phone? What made you even want to comment on a post like this?

Sorry, I missed this reply. What made me want to comment? It seemed dumb. That was enough.

Do I actually have the experience necessary to judge this? Well obviously I think so. I know what a phone is. I have used cell phones before. I have used cell phone apps before. I have developed cell phone apps before. I thought this was enough. I did, however, for my sake and the sake of the reader, point out my own status in case I'm being stupid (which is a strong possibility, particularly since I can't actually try the app out for myself, and the article may be (was?) misleading).

Shameless plug: if you think this sounds interesting, we are hiring: http://bu.mp/jobs. Feel free to email me (jake at bu.mp) if you have questions or just want to learn more. :)

This reminds me of the original PayPal idea (paying a friend via Palm Pilot in person).

I liked that feature. My coworkers and I would use it to settle up with each other when we went out for lunch. I never knew why they discontinued it.

Max Levchin talks about this in jl's Founders At Work. They made the web app mostly as a place to offer the Palm Pilot app for download, but it took off much to everyone's surprise.

IIRC, when they finally abandoned the Palm Pilot app it had 12k active users vs. millions using the web app. So as much as the Palm Pilot app was their baby, it was an easy decision.

Also see: The PayPal Wars.

http://www.amazon.com/PayPal-Wars-Battles-Media-Planet/dp/09...

My initial impression of Bump is that it was a silly idea. Like what if you damage your phone. However, the secret and success of Bump is that it makes a boring transaction a little more fun. Bring back a little human interaction. Make the people using it look cool or uncool (depending on the audience) - but regardless make people pay a little more attention to the people bumping. Everytime, I see a public Bump, I get amused.

If you bump in the manner depicted in the Bump logo, you won't damage your phone.

"When two people with the app bump phones, the sensor readings are sent to the Paypal servers where the algorithm listens to bumps happening all over the world and matches the two phones that felt the same movement."

Correct me if I'm wrong but if they're using Bump's API, aren't the Bump servers the ones doing the algorithmic matching and not the Paypal servers?

Correct, the Bump servers are doing the matching.

All of the press implies that this lets you make payments by bumping phones. If you have actually used the application, you will see that all it does is send the person's email address to you.

Because Bump is not deterministic(ie, you could get a random person's contact info if you are say in an auditorium at SXSW), you still have to confirm that this is the contact you want. Overall, it probably takes more time than just typing the email in, and then you have to go through the normal payment flow anyway. There would be value if it transfered the entire vcard to your address book at the same time since this might be a lot of info.

Ridiculously innovative? Hasn't Bump Technologies offered something similar for nearly a year?

I think paypal bought it from them.

PayPal is licensing the technology from us. Anyone can by do the same at http://bu.mp/api. For most people it is free to license.

http://bu.mp/apideveloper.html

is giving me a 500 internal error; its not a nice break either. spewing some errors instead of a generic page.

Thanks for the heads-up. We're just re-deploying (today) some of our website on a new platform, and still working out the kinks.

I've never used bump, but what happens if I am bumping in close proximity to two other phones bumping?

Anyone ever play with distance thresholds? How close do you actually have to be when you "bump" for it to make a match?

Our matching algorithms evaluate more than just location to determine if two phones are a possibly match (and highly accurate location is fairly rare). So often we are able to match the correct phones even if there are others in close proximity that are also bumping. In the event that we match >2 phones, we prompt those users to bump again and compare both datasets.

Although you can sometimes trick the algorithm into matching phones that did not physically bump by shaking them from across the room, bumping will not work reliably if you do not bump into each other.

Read the article.

I did read the article. Was looking for real world experimentation or maybe a comment from people at Bump. Bumps don't need to happen phone-to-phone, and geolocation data isn't all that accurate.

I saw multiple Bump interactions in highly dense technophile populations at SXSW where two people got a random contact when they bumped.

Awesome! Paypal's "original" (Confinity) business was to allow you to "beam" payments between mobile devices. This closes the loop nicely.

why not just use bluetooth?

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