Interview With David Lieb And Andy Huibers, Creators Of "Bump" The Billionth Installed App

In April, the number of third-party apps installed by iPhone/iPod touch users surpassed one billion. The billionth app installed: Bump, an app lets you swap business cards by bumping two iPhones together. In this interview, we talk with David Lieb and Andy Huibers — the team behind Bump — about how the app works, the boost they received by being the billionth app and the steps that preceded this success.

You can listen using the Flash player below, download the MP3, or subscribe to the iPhone Developer Podcast using the instructions at the bottom of this post.

For easy scanning of the interview, here is what was covered and when:

• 1:00 Description of the Bump App
• 2:00 Bump’s matching algorithm
• 5:30 Core Location drop outs
• 7:30 iPhone clock: “shocking inaccurate,” off by 8-12 seconds, rapid clock changes
• 9:00 What’s next for the app
• 9:45 “Billionth app” experience
• 11:45 Build buzz before being billionth
• 12:00 Power of people in the paper press
• 13:00 Easy sharing of the app
• 14:00 Numbers of cards being bumper per day
• 14:45 Movement towards “intrinsic” growth vs. press-event activity; app “grazers”
• 17:30 Fraction of iPods (vs. iPhone) doubled during billionth app promotion
• 18:00 Bigger business model: bump technology in other apps, other platforms, across platforms
• 19:00 3.0 Bluetooth: helpful or threat?
• 20:00 Review trolls and patently false claims

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