I would like to talk a bit about a very promising web application and also great iPhone application that has been out there for a while but has not been very successful in terms of people using it.
It is true that we are surrounded by Social Apps. For iPhone, web, such a facebook, twitter, amongst many others, so I guess it is not easy to get a place under all this giants.
Brightkite is a service that for the US uses SMS (not in Switzerland…) that lets you “check in” at various locations out in the real world and then see who else is there, has been there, and who is nearby. You can check in via text, web,or iPhone, but text is easiest if you’re using a traditional cell phone.
So you might think that similar tools are out there. Twitter in the iphone using apps such as Twinkle or Twitterfon already take your location, but this are add-ons for twitter.
In brightkite you can select your level of privacy so for instance your trusted friends can know exactly where you are, your friends the city where you are and the rest nothing. You decide when to “check in” your location. You can post updates in a Twitter-like fashion and upload photos to your Brightkite-enabled stream, available at a URL in the format of brightkite.com/people/username. The newly launched “Wall” feature makes Brightkite ideal for conferences and live events as it allows anyone to display the live stream of notes, photos, and checkins at any one place in a large, full screen view that can be shown on any monitor, projector, or TV. You can even link it with your facebook account.
Give it a try.
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