SPOTLIGHTm

Tell the world where you are and see where the world is.

Brightkite for iPhone

What is it?

Brightkite is a location-based social network that has been out for a little while now and the iPhone application is an obvious extension/utility for the site. Using the application, you can “check in” wherever you are, letting your friends or the entire Brightkite community know where you are, post pictures, and notes. On the flipside, you can locate your friends or see what strangers near you or around the world happening to be doing at the exact same time.

How much does it cost?

Free.

Who is it good for?

People who are already connected with others using Brightkite (in beta). Voyeur types who like to look at random tweets on Twitter to see what strangers are doing or just enjoy wasting some time being all up in other people’s business. Potentially, people looking to meet up with other like-minded tech nerds for now until the masses start using it and you can meet up with non-tech strangers.

Summary

Location-based services have a ways to go before they hit the mainstream, but Brightkite’s iPhone app has helped LBS take one giant leap towards the masses. The application has depth to spare, even if you don’t have any friends using Brightkite. One of the biggest barriers to entry for any user is going to be one’s comfort level with broadcasting his/her location out to the world (privacy features exist).

However, status updates, blogging, Twitter, and other types of personal, often-location based sharing have generally caught on after some resistance. Yes, Brightkite takes it a little bit further and makes it a little more personal, but with a slick interface that could be improved upon with some information about different locations that you’re “checking into.” After signing up, Brightkite’s iPhone application could be so good that you never actually have to visit the Brightkite website.

Keep it or Delete it?

Keep it.

The Internet is filled with exhibitionists. From bloggers to vloggers to YouTube stars, people like to share/show off where they are, what they’re doing, and who they’ve seen. Despite the fact that many older generations have some regard for their own privacy (some of us included), there’s a whole generation of people who have grown up with little regard for their own personal privacy, especially when losing fun is the trade off.

For these people, there is Brightkite.

The iPhone makes for the perfect companion for a site like Brightkite. Through the application and the device’s GPS, it’s easy for Brightkite to locate nearby businesses, intersections, or addresses that you’re close to. While it’s not always perfect, you’ll generally be able to find most locations - be they restaurants, libraries, malls, or just addresses - that you happen to be standing at right now. After locating your current location (yes, we wrote it that way), you can choose to Check In, Check In & Post a Note, or Check In & Post a Photo.

What’s great about this is that you have the option of checking in or remaining off the Brightkite radar if you’re not doing anything that you’d like other people to know. For instance, if you’re out on the late night creep to that girl’s house that all your friends told you not to meet up with and she lives in some obscure city that you have no other reason to visit? No need to check in. But if you’re at Staples Center, taking in an Ashley Tisdale concert and you want everyone to be jealous? Check in. In fact? Post a picture!

What makes Brightkite fun for the voyeur/sharer generation is the ability to see what is going on around you. If there’s someone near you that you’re interested in meeting, you can actually message them in real time and potentially meet up with them.

You can choose to see where people have checked in around you or even across the whole Brightkite universe. Even if you don’t know who some of these users are, there’s something incredibly cool about seeing that people across the globe are checking in on Brightkite at the same time as you.

Another thing that we like about Brightkite is the ability to make your updates private to only your friends. If you’re not a sharer or you know that you lack the common sense or sobriety to not check in from your home address, you can tweak your privacy settings so that only your friends can see your updates and find out if  you really went to dinner when you bailed on your friend’s birthday.

While the GPS functionality is great, you’re also able to search for locations and check into them when you’re not actually there. For practical purposes, you could do this when you’re on your way to a restaurant.

But for us, we think this could be a pretty cool opportunity for someone to create a Lonelygirl15-like personality or for a celebrity to create an image around checking into and posting notes at different locations in the city. It could be a great promotional tool and even a fun game amongst friends. More people will end up using it for regular check-in’s, but we thought it was something cool for down the road.

You’re able to see who has checked in at the same location that you’re either at or going to, along with seeing if any other Brightkite users are currently nearby wherever you are or have headed. If this sounds a little creepy for you, you’re probably not of this sharer generation. This could potentially show you if your friends have arrived before you to a party or if they’re just hanging out at a coffee shop down the street, as long as they’ve checked in.

While some think that location based services should constantly run in the background and broadcast your location to all users, we like the check-in system and think that it provides a little bit of control into what you want to share with others. Until these products become really mainstream, half the fun is just the voyeur aspect because chances are, not all your friends are using Brightkite or are equipped with an iPhone (those poor peasants). Once location based services become mainstream and you can actually choose to have only your friends see your updates, then having them run in the background could be valuable. For now, if you choose to be private, there’s a good chance no one will ever see your updates.

Brightkite is simple, but it works. One of the best things about Brightkite is that you don’t have to have friends already using it to take some value out of it. There’s a voyeur aspect that only gets better as more and more people participate. This is a way to meet real people who are near you in real time through messaging and comments and chances are they’ll be fairly outgoing (but we admit, some will be creepy) because they also chose to broadcast their location to others. This is a huge leap for location-based services that aren’t reliant on you already having friends on the service and one of our favorite services of this type that we’ve used so far.