Hello* is this thing on?
Well… Over the past few days we’ve been caught in an avalanche of data importing, exporting, reloading, wrapping, unwrapping, hijinxing and rethinking… you name it. In the process of squeezing Brightkite 1.0 through the flux capacitor we learned humbling lessons in what can go wrong. We understand some of you are frustrated and we apologize. For everyone else, thanks for having patience and faith, 2.0 is back up.
So we’ve already proven we’re not perfect (there we said it) and moving forward there will be some minor bugs that we’ll address (as quickly as we can). As for the major issues that brought the maintenance screen abruptly back up, those have been solved.
We are working on a range of known issues – here are some of the first one’s you’ll see fixed:
- Mobile web enhancements
- Email fixes
- Ability to track and untrack threads of comments
- Inviting new friends
- Maps
- Editing Favorite Places (formerly Placemarks)
Please have a look round the new service, and then tell us what you think – both good and bad. If you have comments or ideas, then post them here.
Yours humbly,
The Brightkite team
Posted by Brady Becker at 11:22 AM in Product 32 comments
Welcome back! You were missed!
Wondering what's happened to the "Visited Places" feature? Is it gone for good?
Hi Kathleen,
No, it's not gone for good, it will be back. :)
Just having my first look around so I'll reserve any definitive opinion for later. My first impression is that the check-in is more convoluted than it used to be. And where are the nicknames that I assigned to my placemarks? It's not as easy now to differentiate, for example, between the Coffee Culture on Dundas Street here in London and the one that's on Richmond Street. Give me back my CC1 and CC2 nicks! LOL
Also, what's this intensedebate/OpenID crap if I want to leave you a comment? I'm already logged in with my Brightkite ID!
IT'S STILL BROKEN.
It's impossible to login, the email password reset doesn't work, a text message for reset never comes through, Facebook connect doesn't work.
There's no way to actually use the site, at all.
Next time, check to make sure it's working BEFORE you make claims like this, eh?
Yeah they really should make sure its fine for you before they make claims ay? Because you do pay to use the site….oh wait.
You arrogant asshole!
Paying or not paying does not change anything.
THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT
No, they should really fix it before posting "hey, we fixed it", in order to avoid looking like incompetent fools.
Yes, they have it working now, but it should have been working before this post was made.
thats why u should invite some people to do beta testing
I can't save my friends as trusted friends any more. Now, we don't get each others exact locations if our profiles are private. What's up with that?
I'm very pleased the Brightkite is back now. Yesterday was big celebration with my BK friends.
We know all of us are not perfect, and I have a lot of wish list. (generally, about to back familiar older ver features) So, I'll place my suggestion to the feed-back section.
Anyway, welcome-back. I missed you a lot!
Privacy settings are extremely confusing. I came back to see some of the enhancements, but was really confused on where to configure my overall privacy settings. It doesn't look like there's a way to separate privacy settings for content and location, which is a big disappointment. I want to share my location with my friends, but everyone else can see what I'm typing. Doesn't look like there's a way to do that.
All good here except the $Place $City etc. format isn't sync'ing with my Brightkite settings to Twitter.
Happy to see you back with humble hearts and open minds. I've messaged a few observations to @lanky (have not heard back), and will just keep sending things as I see them. The new changes thus far will certainly change the frequency and way I use the site, but I'll stick with it thru the transition time. I still believe the next trend will be in location based sites, and right now you are one of the pioneers (though not the only one out there). Brightkite still has great potential, and listening to the user base will take you a lot farther. My biggest advice is to enlist a bigger, more neutral beta group and have them rip it to shreds privately and thoroughly and work out the kinks before a new rollout. Also, would like the ability to email support directly, rather than post every thought here.
Will we get a notification when some of these things are fixed?
The former placemarks feature now does not work on the blackberry mykite app. As a result I have to enter the address of the places I frequent instead of using the saved placemarks.
youngck I am aware of that not working. I have a pending release coming out soon but I'm waiting for these fixes to happen before I do a release.
I am aware of the issues with myKite and have been working on a fix but until the site stabalizes I cannot release it due to the constant changes. Follow @myKite on BK and @myKiteapp on twitter for all the latest news.
I'm having issues with-
- SMS checkin/post success & confirmation. (this was an issue prior to 2.0)
- shortcut nicknames for favorites being taken literally – ex. "ga" name for Green Acres Market placemark prompting 'Are you sure you want to check in in Georgia?' (also an old & intermittent problem)
- website place searches turning up nonsense (definitely new)
Are [custom names] coming back? Attempting to use them seems to be one of the causes of the absolutely and inexplicably wrong search results. Custom names are one of the things that make Brightkite so much fun.
Hi Emilycatherine.
Thanks for reporting the bugs.
Custom names are in 2.0 but are now in the UI. When you pick a place choose "not in the list?" at the bottom of the list. You can then add your a place with a custom name.
Brady,
I tried this. The name didn't appear on the place; just the address.
I assumed the name I entered was assigned as the text I would enter to check in there. I tried it again and it worked.
Often I would create placemarks while on a computer after locating and before going out to new places, allowing me to check in via SMS with the shortcut alias when I get there. This doesn't seem to be possible, as the popup method you describe doesn't allow you to create or favorite a place until *after* you have checked in.
BTW, you guys know that http://brightkite.com/ STILL doesn't work, right? This error just baffles me! I know login was redirecting to /objects to sidestep it, but it isn't any longer.
i can't check-in by texting from my phone! tried deleting the settings and starting over, but i'm not even receiving the confirmation code. yes i did use the country prefix, and this isn't the first time brightkite broke down on me… =( very sad now.
Still can’t login to Brightkite. Is it still down?
There seems to be new post according to the homepage though.
Anyone else getting blank texts from brightkite? Seems I end up getting two blank texts back to back every hour or so.
Seems the majority of SMS functionality got borked with the update…Pity as that's the only way I interact with BK. Oh well, one less social network to mess with until it gets fixed.
None of my updates/photos are being pushed to Facebook or Twitter. I've toggled the settings off then back on, re-saved etc. Just a heads up. I'm sure it'll all get sorted out.
I'm the the only one person who want the older brightkite back again!!