Bump

Bump is an application with a simple sounding name and purpose, undermined by a fairly complicated operational system. You’ll need to bump several times before you get the hang of using it.

The first thing you’ll need to do is make a contact in your phonebook that is you. Make it detailed, so that the people you bump with will have all your information. Think of it like a business card, you’ll need you’re name, position, email and website URL. Once you’ve done that, go into Bump, select contacts, and select your contact as you. This way, when you bump with people, they will be able to see that it’s you.

From here, you have to have the person you’re bumping with get their bump application running, then the two of you literally pump funs. A simple touch works, but we felt it necessary to put a little more oomph in our bumping. You can choose your own bumping style.

The first thing you’ll notice after bumping is that there is nothing to take form the other person’s phone. This is because you have to select files to send to their phone. If you exit the linked screen and go back to Bump’s homepage, you’ll see there are several choices of buttons on the bottom. You can select photos, music (only 100 at a time), contacts and social networks. Once you’ve chosen what you want to share, and they have as well, bump again. Now you can select the different options presented, skim through your choices, and download all the things you want to download.

Once you’ve done it enough, Bump runs pretty smoothly. And it’s free, which always helps. But choosing your files to share isn’t exactly intuitive, and there is usually at least a little confusion after bumping as to what is available for the taking, where it is, and whether it has actually been downloaded. Still, Bump is a fast way to share a lot of information, like contacts and pictures, and the fact that it’s free means it is definitely worth putting it onto your phone.

PixelPipe

Pixelpipe is one of the applications that really does everything. They try to combine all of your favorite social media sites into on application. This way, you only need one app to control your social life. You can store email addresses and social networks within the application. This allows you to send photos, or videos to anyone you want to. You can update your blog, Tweet from multiple accounts, and check other social media sites. All you do is check the sites you want your content to be uploaded on in the settings menu. I can send multiple pictures from my camera roll to my Pixelpipe account. It sounds great, but there are definitely some bugs. They’re actually kind of large kinks that really dissuade a user from picking this platform.

Here’s the problem, it doesn’t work as well as it’s marketed. It is incredibly slow when you have big files, or too many pictures. Photos go up relatively easily, sometimes videos have issues uploading. It gets pretty frustrating. Also, it has recently been taken out of the iTunes store. This isn’t the first time this has happened. If you’re going to go for a file transmission app, you should probably find one that is more stable than Pixelpipe. I can still see the videos I’ve already uploaded to the website, and their blog is still around and says they’ve completed Symbian signing. Before that their post was about Pixelpipe for Android. I don’t think this application is worth the hassle, considering now you can’t even find it on the iTunes store. There are other apps out there that have similar functions that work better overall.

For more file transfer applications, check out Jennifer's DropBox post.

Dropbox

Dropbox is one of my favorite finds since starting this endeavor. Dropbox allows you to sync multiple computers (including phones, both iPhone and Android), share and store files. To use on your computer, simply sign up for Dropbox and download the application to your computer. When you are finished, you should see an additional icon near your Bluetooth, AirPort and battery life meter (if you are on a Mac). It will also add an icon to your folders. So, now when you are in a folder on your Desktop, you can choose to share/store/sync the file with Dropbox.

The next step is installing the application on your phone. For the iPhone, Dropbox is great for sharing/storing/syncing photos. You can create a folder by pushing the plus sign in the lower left corner. To add a photo, click the camera on the bottom row. The application comes with an iPhone intro and a Getting Started guide. It really couldn't be any easier.

If you want to share files, go to their website and click on the Sharing tab of your account. It will ask you to pick a folder to share with others. When a file is shared, it will sync automatically to their computer.

The only thing I should note about this application is the amount of free space you get. With a free account, you get 2GB of free space, which is not a lot if you plan on storing a lot of photo files. 2GB is pretty standard for online file sharing, and can be found on other sites such as Mozy. You can upgrade the 50 GB for $99/year or 100GB for $199/year. For Mozy, it is unlimited storage for around $55 dollars a year, but Mozy doesn't have a mobile application as far as I know.

I really like this application and I would highly recommend it for all newsrooms. The application is free and you get 2 GB free. You can use it to get information to your editors quickly as long as you just keep a few things on it, you can use these features for free!