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Learn how we built the Brightkite iPhone app
December 10th, 2009
Like the Brightkite iPhone app? You can get an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at our design process and thinking in the recently released book iPhone User Interface Design Projects. Chapter 3, which is exclusively dedicated to the Brightkite iPhone app, covers such topics as:
- web vs native app
- the motivation behind using tab navigation
- why we redesigned the entire signup process just before release
- how we accomplished virtually infinite detail drill-down without running out of memory
- best practices for address book integration
The chapter covers the Brightkite 1.0 iPhone version, so some stuff has changed since then, but all of it is still relevant. Thanks to Dan Burcaw of Double Encore for writing this up…you rock!
You can purchase the book on Amazon.com.
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Posted by Martin at 1:26 PM in Apps, Brightkite, Mobile, iPhone
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We’re hiring
April 21st, 2009
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Want to join our team? You’re in luck, we have some openings. Currently, we’re looking for the following:
Ruby on Rails Engineer (Denver, CO)
We are looking for a rockstar Ruby on Rails software developer to help us improve Brightkite. Feel at home on MySpace or Facebook? Use your cell phone everywhere you go for texting? Like tackling tough problems? We’d like to meet you!
Required:
- BS in Computing Science or similar field
- Ruby on Rails experience
- SQL experience (preferably PostgreSQL)
- Familiarity with Subversion or Git
- Strong HTML and CSS skills, with a focus on standards
- AJAX experience
- Excellent teamworker, self-starter
We have another opening below, but here’s a sneak peek at what life is like working for Brightkite:
Mobile Developer (Denver, CO)
We’re also looking for a mobile developer to join our development team. Love developing for mobile devices, and enjoy playing around with the latest and greatest gadgets? Interested in location based services and augmented reality? We’d like to meet you!
Required:
- BS in Computing Science or similar field
- Experience developing on one or all of the following: iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Symbian
- Knowledge of Cocoa Touch Framework and related technologies
- Knowledge of web service technologies and services (specifically REST APIs)
- Experience with iPhone SDK
Nice to have:
- Experience developing other mobile applications (Windows Mobile, etc)
- Ruby on Rails experience
- Experience with Macintosh OS
- SQL experience (preferably PostgreSQL)
- HTML and CSS skills, with a focus on standards
- AJAX experience
What can we provide to you? A competitive salary & benefits, great work environment and stock options.
To apply, please send your resume and why you want to join our team to jobs AT brightkite DOT KOM. We’re looking forward to talking to you.
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Posted by Martin at 3:35 PM in API, Android, Brightkite, Culture, Mobile, iPhone
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Brightkite iPhone Chat
September 9th, 2008
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As promised in our last blog post, we wanted to give those of you who didn’t get in on the iPhone app beta a chance to ask us some questions around the app, what’s coming, suggest features, etc.
We are holding an online chat tomorrow, September 10th at 3pm MST . Everybody is welcome to join, but please keep the chatter on topic. We anticipate the chat lasting about 30 minutes.
You can access the chat here:
http://blog.brightkite.com/chat/ (no password required, just pick a username and join)
See you there tomorrow!
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Posted by Martin at 2:40 PM in Brightkite, iPhone
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Where is the Native Brightkite iPhone App?
July 10th, 2008
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With the release of the App Store today, those of you with iPhones have probably been searching for the native Brightkite iPhone app, and wondered why they couldn’t find it. The truth is, while we would have loved to have the app available today, we decided not to release it just yet. Here is why:
- We don’t have a 3G iPhone to test on yet. More specifically, we’d like to see how well the GPS in the new phones works.
- We don’t want to release something that’s not rock-solid. And by rock-solid, we don’t mean crashing, but rock-solid from a usability standpoint. The app should be as easy to use as possible. We have some very ambitious goals concerning the user interface, but getting it just right takes time and we’re just not quite there yet.
Of course, this doesn’t make you any less anxious to try our app. So when is it coming out? While we don’t have an exact release date, we’ll commit to having it available by the end of the month. Thanks for being patient, and we think you’re really going to like what the app has to offer.
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Posted by Martin at 5:11 PM in iPhone
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Aggregate Brightkite Data through Gnip
July 1st, 2008
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If you didn’t get that, you probably won’t get Gnip’s name either. Regardless, we just started publishing all publicly-viewable Brightkite activity, including checkins, notes and photos, to recently launched data portability service Gnip. Here’s what they do in a nutshell:
We push activity to them, and instead of us getting bombarded with requests from social aggregation services every few seconds (SocialThing, FriendFeed, etc.), we can point them to Gnip and let them deal with it. The big upsides for aggregation services: no rate-limiting, and a uniform way to know when new data is available.
If you’re a developer, have a look at Gnip: it might just make your life a whole lot easier.
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Posted by Martin at 12:32 PM in Uncategorized
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They brought us beer :)
June 29th, 2008
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I just wanted to give a quick shout-out to the fine folks at Flying Dog Brewery, who were kind enough to drop off some free beer at our office this week. You guys rock!
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Posted by Martin at 12:07 PM in Uncategorized
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We’re funded!
March 4th, 2008
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We know that we have been pretty quiet lately about our progress, and there is a good reason for that: we’ve been busy finalizing the details for our Series A round of funding. Well, we’re happy to report that it’s done: Brightkite is officially funded!
That’s all we’re going to reveal for now about our funding, but to make up for the lack of details, there are some other news: we just moved into new office space, not too far from the Denver Ballpark neighborhood.
Here’s a snapshot:
We’re friendly, so drop by and say hi if you’re in the area. If not, you can keep tabs on what’s going on at our office by checking it out on Brightkite.
Of course, you’re probably wondering where we’re at with the product. We’ve been in private beta for a little while now, and we’ve learned a lot. Based on our findings, we’re making some improvements to the site and our mobile versions, and will open up the beta to a much broader audience in the next few months. So please, bear with us…you won’t be disappointed!
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Posted by Martin at 7:17 PM in Brightkite, Product
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TechStars 2008
January 22nd, 2008
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I can’t believe that it’s already been that long since we first applied to TechStars, but yes, it’s been a year. TechStars is now accepting applications for 2008, and if you think that you have an idea for the Next Big Thing, stop dreaming and apply!
TechCrunch already blogged about it, so chances are that you already knew. So here are some quick pointers for your application:
What’s your name? What’s your email address? What’s your phone number?
Get any of these wrong, and you can stop reading…David probably will, too.
Where is your team based, geographically?
I don’t think that this matters too much, as long as it’s in the US. If you’re not in the US, you need to have a visa or some other permission that lets you participate in the program (and TechStars probably won’t be able to help with that).
What will the name of your company be?
This better be good, because it will be the number one point that David will base his decision on…okay, maybe not. Honestly, this doesn’t matter too much, either. At least 4 (I think it was more) of last year’s companies changed their name after starting TechStars.
If you have a web site, what’s the URL?
If you have one, list it here, but make sure that what’s there isn’t totally broken or makes no sense. I think a nice, clean placeholder page with a form for collecting email addresses is the way to go (unless you’ve already launched something, of course). A link to your blog is a bonus.
What will your company do or make?
You might think that this is the most important question, but it actually isn’t. It’s not trivial either, but if last year’s TechStars are any indication, anything you put here will probably change, either dramatically, or in more subtle ways. That is a good thing, because it means that the mentorship you are getting at TechStars is helpful.
So, what is important here? Show that you’ve thought about the problem you are trying to solve, that you understand your target market, your competitors, and that you’re smart. That means don’t “invent” something that is already being done, and if you do, make sure that you get the next section right.
What’s new, interesting, or different about what your company will do?
If you have a totally revolutionary idea, you might have answered this question in the previous section. But more than likely, your idea will be a rehash of something existing, that you want to do better/cheaper/faster/greener/prettier/insert-your-particular-advantage-here. Whatever you do here, be honest, because David can smell BS from a mile away and he’ll challenge you on it (if you get to that part).
Have you already taken any outside investment? Please describe if so .
Somewhat of a formality, I think. Again, just be honest, there is not much you can do about this anyway. If you have taken investment, describe how much, where you got it, and what you’ve done with it.
Explain how the company will make money.
The answer to this will depend on your idea, but don’t be afraid to say “we have no idea yet, but want to explore the following: x, y, z”. If you must say advertising, explain how and why it will work. I think we answered “advertising” on this, but backed it up with some credentials (we had some background in that space).
Tell us about each founder (include their role, skills, education level, schools, past companies, past projects, etc).
If you can only get one section right, make it this one (okay, it would be good to get the name, email and phone questions right, too). TechStars will primarily choose kick-ass teams, and great ideas are secondary. If you have a kick-ass team AND a great idea, even better. But ultimately, I think the team is more important. An idea is worth very little if it isn’t executed properly.
So, show that you have assembled a really great team. If you have a resume that’s 10 pages long with plenty of successes, include that, but chances are that you don’t (we didn’t). Look for ways to show David that you are smart, enthusiastic, driven, but also humble and eager to learn.
If you or any of your team members have built cool stuff on the web, please provide the URLs.
This is the evidence section for the previous section, and is especially important if you don’t have an impressive resume. David and most of the other TechStars guys are geeks at heart and will appreciate anything you can show them. When we applied, we told them about loopnote.com, which we had built on nights and weekends. Ultimately, I think that’s what got us accepted (David, feel free to comment).
Can each of the founders come to Boulder, Colorado for the summer of 2008? If not, please elaborate.
If you answer no here, make sure that you have a really good reason. The program doesn’t work well if you’re not there. Case in point: we were already living in Denver when we applied, and decided to commute to Boulder for TechStars (25 minutes one way, if you’re lucky). It worked out okay, but in retrospect I wish that we had relocated to Boulder. There is more to TechStars than the “official” sessions, and you’ll miss out if you don’t immerse yourself fully.
That being said, some teams had members who couldn’t be there the entire summer, so it’s not a total dealbreaker.
Why should we choose your team to participate in TechStars?
Closing arguments, please. It’s perfectly okay to show some confidence here (“because we’re the best”), but be ready to back it up with some solid evidence. David used to tell us that there are 2 categories of people who he’s really good a spotting: “i don’t believe you” and/or “stupid”. Needless to say, don’t fall into those categories.
I’m by no means an expert on what TechStars wants to hear here, so take everything I said with a grain of salt. With that being said, I must have at least some of it right, since they accepted our application last year. :)
Good luck!
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Posted by Martin at 4:45 PM in TechStars
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Our next app… and the mobile biz
September 19th, 2007
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Well, now that Techstars is over we’re pretty busy with our product roadmap. In the last post we talked a little bit about the Brightkite platform. There’s really nothing else like it out there and we think it’ll be a big hit with developers who want to create their own location based services. But that doesn’t mean we’re not building our own services. In fact, we’ve already built a few. Over the summer we worked on a few projects including 1) a location-based chat application that works via SMS, 2) a text-to-screen application (we call it placestreaming) and 3) a small app for Facebook called “Where are you”.
Those were all pretty useful apps but they were always meant as proof of concepts. Basically, what we learned is “yep, there’s a good reason to have a platform that lets you use multiple applications.”
Our next app is really the heart of it all. I won’t say too much about it right now but lets just say it’s a way to “tie it all together”. I know that’s pretty vague but we’ll talk a lot more about it soon.
In the meantime, you might want to check out some of the stuff that’s been happening in the mobile space. So much this past week!
Back in 1999 – 2001 I worked for a small startup called Indiqu. It was one of the first mobile content services companies and I got to see how dealing with big carriers can be both highly lucrative or disastrous for a small company. Back then there was a lot of excitement around the business deals and products being launched but very little consumer adoption. The result? Another bubble.
It’s amazing to see the space starting to heat up again, and this time I think there’s some really smart minds and money indicating that it’s for real this time.
In case you missed Techcrunch’s post on the Holy Grail for Mobile Social Networks, have a read. Arrington basically says location is the missing component from making these apps really amazing. It also looks like Mig33 and Mocospace combined have over 8 million users… that’s great to see.
There’s also been a lot of news this past week regarding Mobile Marketing. First off Google just announced AdSense is now available for mobile apps. This is huge news for those companies developing apps for mobile devices because it means they can start making money without having to establish advertising deals themselves.
If you haven’t been keeping up with Nokia, they’ve been making some pretty big changes. They’ve been aggressively shifting their focus from just being a hardware company to becoming a mobile services play as well. Along those lines they just acquired Enpocket, a mobile advertising firm. This is another indicator that mobile advertising is indeed growing.
Finally, the Kelsey Group just published a U.S. Mobile Marketing Forecast 2006-20012. If you can get your hands on it, there’s a lot of great data there. The main takeaway points I had were that 1) the mobile advertising market in the US will grow to $1.4 Billion by 2012 and that 2) there are concrete factors that they believe are strong indicators that the growth is for real this time.
And that’s just in the US… As far as worldwide mobile marketing goes, ABI Research sees the space already worth $3 Billion now and growing to $19 Billion by 2011.
We love being in this space right now…
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Posted by Martin at 2:21 PM in Mobile Marketing, Research
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Maps are good
August 27th, 2007
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We love things about location and maps and stuff like that…
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