Re: A Manifesto for Mobile and Location Based Social Networks

Aaron Brazell — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 19:58:50 -0000

Martin- would be happy to update the post when Brightkite releases the RESTful API. Also happy to mangle data when it comes around. Thanks for stopping by.

Re: A Manifesto for Mobile and Location Based Social Networks

Martin May — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 19:35:59 -0000

Hey Aaron,

Great write-up. A couple of clarifications regarding Brightkite:

Phone Support - Brightkite actually works on pretty much any US phone that supports text messaging, and we provide the same functionality via mobile e-mail. We also have (as you mention) a generic WAP version of our site, and an iPhone-specific site. I'd argue that we have most bases covered when it comes to phone support.

GPS compatible - Brightkite already understands latitude/longitude information, and we'll have native clients for phones coming out within the next month.

Location Data easy for Users to Use - we provide GeoRSS and KML feeds for all of the activity within Brightkite, making it really easy to share location data, and users have built widgets and other visualizations around it:

http://blog.brightkite.com/...
http://blog.brightkite.com/...
http://blog.brightkite.com/...

We also have a REST-based API coming. I would argue that we deserve a "Yes" in that category. ;)

Low Impact Monetization - As you know, we have very concrete plans for monetization that will be very low-impact on the user, and goes beyond the obvious "location-based ads" model.

Overall, I have to agree with the white paper...those are critical areas for location-based social networks to get right, and rest assured that we're working on making it happen.

Martin
brightkite.com

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Re: A Manifesto for Mobile and Location Based Social Networks

Re: A Manifesto for Mobile and Location Based Social Networks