Quick Pitch: Bumped.in is an online community for people on the move. Every time we travel, we cross paths with people who could potentially enrich our lives. But oftentimes, we're missing an outlet that allows us to connect, network and interact.
Genius Idea: For years, sites like Tripit and Dopplr have existed to give travelers a simple and potentially fun way to share their itineraries and trips with friends. Bumped.in takes a similar approach to travel plans but hopes to throw in a bit of social media serendipity to create fruitful connections for frequent commuters and travelers.
After signing up and filling out your profile, you can use Bumped.in to add plane and train trips to start your own digital travel logs -- a.k.a Bump Walls. You can use the Bump Walls to share photos and status update-like notes about each trip. Trips can be one-time-only voyages or of the everyday commuter variety, and you can share them privately with friends or publicly with others.
You can also use the site to uncover nearby hotels or dining hotspots, and take advantage of the Facebook integration to publish travel log entries to the social networking site, and to find friends already using Bumped.in.
Bumped.in also works to introduce and connect travelers with similar interests who are destined to cross paths (and may never know it) on the same flight or train ride.
The idea is to play matchmaker -- only romantically if users so choose -- for people looking to connect with fellow passengers and commuters. The matching engine is designed to help you search for and match up with other users both before and during a trip. Find a match, request a meeting through Bumped.in, and voila, you're one step closer to cementing a new relationship and making a travel buddy.
Bumped.in is brand new so its promise to enhance the entire travel experience is a bite premature. Should enough users start to use the site, however, it could be an interesting way to find and connect with like-minded people that otherwise would have passed you by.
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