Location based social networking isn’t exactly a new thing. One of the earliest and more popular services in this area was Dodgeball. Dodgeball was eventually bought by Google, but nothing has been done with the service since it’s purchase in 2005. But location based services seem to be on the rise again and Brightkite is one of the newer players on the location based social networking scene.
I was blessed with a Brightkite invite by Mr. Jon Sykes. While Jon has been singing it’s praises, I’ve been more on the fence. Being a big fan of Twitter, I wasn’t sure I needed another Twitter-like service to keep tabs on and update. Plus there’s the selling point of the service, it’s all bout location, location, location. Whenever you’re at a new location, you can check-in via your phone, computer or other mobile device. With your location set, you can then post notes and photos about that location. Notes and photos are essentially twitter-like messages with the ability to post photos. While I can see the value in this for those who work/live in large cities or those who are big into the social scene, it was hard to see the value for someone who’s location may not change that often or who doesn’t have the flexibility to spontaneously meet-up with friends.
Over the past couple weeks I’ve used the service on and off. And honestly, it’s been fun seeing what friends are up to and the photos they’re posting. The challenge for me has been finding where Brightkite fits in my “digital lifestyle”. I already use Twitter for posting short messages and Flickr for posting photos. But lately I’ve been more selective about the photos I post on Flickr and the messages I post on Twitter. I’m not posting as many “going to the store” type of posts to Twitter and I’ve refrained from posting lower quality photos (such as cameraphone) to flickr. But now I’m finding this is the space where Brightkite fits in nicely.
With Brightkite you have various privacy settings available to you. At the high level, it’s public or private. Public is no holds barred. All info about your checkin location will be posted. Private on the other hand has a subset of privacy settings for how to handle your photos, notes and location while you’re in private mode. You could choose to display your exact location to only your friends while the non-friends will only see the city from which you posted. These settings are applied on a per-post basis. So while you’re home you can set your privacy level to private and all posts while in private mode will be marked as such. Then while your out and about getting lunch, set your privacy level to public while you’re at that location. All posts marked private previously will remain private. My only pet-peeve with this is that if you mistakenly post a photo or note as public, you can’t change it to private. You’ll need to delete that post if you’re concerned about the info being public. What I would like to see when it comes to the privacy settings is the ability to set privacy by location. For example, being able say “When I checkin at home, automatically set my privacy level to private”.
I’m now using Brightkite to post the short location based posts I would normally restrain myself from posting on Twitter. Because that post is now within the context of the location it was posted from. And I can set the privacy of that post so only my trusted friends will be able to see it, making Brightkite more personal than something like Twitter. While you can make your Twitter stream private, it’s an all or nothing option, you don’t get the level of privacy controls you get with Brightkite. I’m also using it to post location based photos that I normally wouldn’t be posting on Flickr. In addition to the personal aspects I’m using it for, I can see it being a great tool while traveling or attending conferences.
While I gave Brightkite a hard time at first, I’m beginning to see where it could fit in the current social networking ecosystem. Will I stick with it? Who knows. Ask anyone I know, I’m the most fickle person when it comes to… well, anything. Currently Brightkite is in private beta and is invitation only. I currently have 5 invitations left, so if you’re interested in checking out Brightkite and you want an invite, drop a comment on this post.