You can now see places from street level if Google has “crawled” the street.
Archive Page 3 of 5
We recently added KML support to every Brightkite place page. To find it, just replace the .rss with .kml on the place page RSS feed.
For example: http://brightkite.com/places/77de68daecd823babbb58edb1c8e14d7106e83bb/objects.kml
Over the past few days we have been having a lot of fun visualizing live Brightkite activity by plugging network KML files into Google Earth.
You can visualize Brightkite place feeds in Google Earth as well, here’s how:
Download the following Brighkite Universe KML network file and open it in Google Earth:
brightkite_universe.kml
Here is another example showing activity from the Colorado place page:
brightkite_colorado.kml
We recommend only viewing one network feed at a time and changing your Google Earth “Fly Speed” to around 1.3.
We found this at Patchchord.com
Yesterday evening we quietly released a generic mobile version of Brightkite. Cheers to Tony for whipping out this alpha version in a couple days. We haven’t yet tested it on every device so if you encounter issues on certain devices, please tell us, and specify the device.
You can find the mobile version of Brightkite at m.brightkite.com
In addition to the mobile version, we have been working away fixing some of the major issues discovered in the past few weeks. Things to look for in the coming weeks: improved mapping functionality, improved friend discovery, improved profiles, refinements to the iPhone app, and fixes to many other little issues such as the login cookie annoyance.
This afternoon we released an alpha version of the Brightkite iPhone application. To use it, just visit Brightkite.com on your iPhone.
There are some features missing and it’s possible some things are broken, but hey, it’s alpha. Let us know what you think here, we are listening.
You can now check in by joining friends at a location. This is how the JOIN command works:
Say you are meeting a fellow Brightkite user at a location. This user has already checked in there. When you arrive you can simply text JOIN username to 80289 (For example: join brady). Brightkite will then check you in at the same location as the specified user.
Thank you for all feedback on Get Satisfaction! If we haven’t responded to your entry yet, please note we do read all the feedback. Our plate is pretty full right now but we will try to respond in a timely manner.
Over the past two weeks we have added a handful of new features and improvements. Many of these have been a direct result of the great user feedback we have been receiving. Your feedback has been improving the product (we hope), so keep it coming; we are listening!
Below are a few of the new features we have added:
Brightkite GeoRSS Feeds
Place streams, user streams, and the Brightkite Universe stream now have GeoRSS feeds. The “Around Me” feed is coming soon.
Here is an example of my Brightkite GeoRSS feed:
http://brightkite.com/people/brady/objects.rss
Now here is a user feed if you only want to see only a user’s photos and notes:
http://brightkite.com/people/hiro/objects.rss?limit=100&filters=text,photos
Here is an example of a Brightkite place feed:
http://brightkite.com/places/356a192b7913b04c54574d18c28d46e6395428ab/objects.rss
If you throw your GeoRSS feed into the search box on Google Maps you’ll get markers for each post and checkin on the map. Look at this Google Maps example, or view your Brightkite GeoRSS chronologically. These are just a few examples of what you can do with Brightkite GeoRSS. We are excited about the many interesting possibilities around visualizing Brightkite GeoRSS feeds.
Business & People Search
You can now search Brightkite users by username or real name. Brightkite business search allows you to browse and check in at businesses.
Around Me Radius
You can now configure the radius of your “Around Me” stream. See activity around your location at varying degrees of accuracy.
Nearby Notifications
You can now set the radius of your nearby notifications, choose friends only or turn them off completely.
Twitter Geolocation
With Twitter sharing enabled, your Brightkite location can now update the location in your Twitter profile rather than potentially annoying your followers with constant check in updates.
Keep watch this week for the iPhone application and more details on the developer API.
As you can see we have been really busy and could use some help. Come work with us! We are hiring a Rails Developer, Flash/Flex Developer and Product Evangelist.
Today we began handing out the first private beta accounts off of our invite list. The response so far has been overwhelmingly positive.
Brightkite is a location-based social network that enables people to take their online profiles with them into the real-world and make real-world friends. Users can see where their friends are and what they’re up to all while maintaining comprehensive degrees of privacy to non-friends. Depending on a user’s privacy setting they can also be open to meeting others nearby.
Brightkite has been designed from the ground up to be accessible to everyone regardless of carrier or how fancy your phone is. Currently there are a handful of location-based social networks that exist within the walled gardens of carriers or courtyards of the fancy iPhone. How fun is a social network when only a small percentage of your friends (and potential friends) can use it? Brightkite has been designed to be device & carrier agnostic. Although rich media devices such as iPhone obviously offer a better user experience, at the lowest level you can interact with Brightkite via text message (SMS), web and iPhone.
SMS Interface - Although these text messages are shown on a fancy phone, you can interact with Brightkite on any phone via text message (SMS).
If you are waiting for an invite we hope it arrives soon. You can also get in by finding a friend with an invite. Once you’re in, so are your friends. In the meantime, below are some select screen shots of the live Brightkite beta web interface:
Around Me - View users nearby your current location. See what they are up to. Make new friends.
Brightkite Universe - View all the public activity on Brightkite. Notice the posts from the Maldives; the service is not limited to the US.
Live Friends Map - See where your friends are at a neighborhood, city, state and world zoom level.
Place Pages - See who visits your favorite places and what they post there, in real-time.
Visited Places - Keep track of all the places you go.
Sharing - Brightkite can share your content with Twitter & Fire Eagle
Brightkite iPhone Application - The Brightkite iPhone application is coming very soon.
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!
This clip appeared on YouTube about a month or so ago, being a loyal fan of David Lynch I tend to agree with his point of view. If you watch a movie on your telephone, you’re really just watching it, you’re not experiencing it. It’s not possible for a little touch screen to compete with the big screen theater, the phone completely negates the cinematic experience. News, video podcasts, a music video, maybe… but to try and experience a feature film on your phone is completely ridiculous.
In what ways can mobile devices actually enhance our real world experiences? Some mobile applications, for example the Google Maps iPhone app, enrich my real world on a daily basis. It enhances my reality by adding an instantly relevant layer of location information based on where I am. Its great, simple and useful. Currently there are very few mobile applications that successfully enhance real world experiences. I look forward to the days when augmented reality concepts like this become commonplace… but until then, if I want an enhanced real world experience, I’ll stick to the big screen.
Related Clips:
“Futuregazing” 4G augmented reality concept 
David Lynch on product placement.