Bump and Flock Will Shut Down On January 31
Google acquired contact and file-sharing app Bump back in September. Bump co-founder and chief executive David Lieb said the company was “thrilled” to join Google, citing similar passions for sharing information between people and devices. We’re not too sure he’ll feel the same way now.
Bump and Flock are no more and will stop working and be removed from Google Play (and the App Store) on January 31st, 2014. The reason for this decision: Lieb and his team are now “deeply focused” on new projects within Google and don’t have the resources or time to devote to innovating on either product.
The app allows iPhone and Android users to “bump” together two phones to share contact details and files between devices. Later versions also allowed phone users to “bump” phones with desktop computers.
In September 2011, the company announced it had 50 million downloaders and 10 million active “bumpers.” Just less than a year later, more than 600 million photos were shared by “bumping” phones. Later it released an iPhone-only version photo-sharing app dubbed Flock (not to be confused with the social browser of the same name).