Placestreaming with Brightkite Jun12 '08
Brightkite acts like Twitter for places. Post photos, notes, and check-in anywhere in the world.
This is useful for organizing events, meeting new people, or just having an idea of where your friends are at.
It's also useful for collecting photos and notes about a specific location. Think of it as a social network version of Travelocity.
Any physical location (an address or business) has a permanent page on Brightkite, where Brightkite users can post photos and notes at or about the place.
For example, if I'm currently checked-in at Wrigley Field, any notes or photos I submit will reside underneath the Wrigley Field address page on Brightkite. I can also submit photos and notes while not at that place - let's say I'm just talking about the place, such as:
"Wow, that game last night was great!"
I'd reference Wrigley Field's location on Brightkite when leaving this note, so users can apply further context to my note. Any future Wrigley Field visitors will see my note amongst all the other photos and notes collected for that location.
It's called a placestream.
It doesn't even have to be a landmark location like a baseball stadium. Any physical address (or even just a city and state) can retain notes and photos about it.
Here's the placestream for the CTA's Jackson Blue Line stop in Chicago. How about a placestream just for a city and state, effectively zooming out from street level? Check out Mount Prospect, IL.
Imagine a future where you're visiting a place, and you already have dozens of notes and photos about that place. And these aren't media-filtered notes and images. It's pure user-generated content - raw and real.
If I were a small business, I'd make sure my Brightkite location page had good reviews coming in. I'd also "build up" that location page with good photos and thoughts.
Categories: Brightkite 
, Places , Social Networks
Add Feedback (view all)
Leave feedback
is published and produced by Matt Thommes - an independent publishing enthusiast, mobile blogger, content creator, informative writer, web developer from Chicago.
Never one to conform, Matt intends to promote the effect the web has on our lives, in an effort to intensify, instruct, and clarify all that is happening around us.
Similar Entries
- Brightkite provides geo-contextual information (4 recent visits)
- Customize Brightkite-to-Twitter updates (28 recent visits)
- Brightkite suggests Twitter instead of 404 (16 recent visits)
- Brightkite works with Twitter (110 recent visits)
- Ideas for using the Brightkite API (10 recent visits)
- Brightkite and privacy (3 recent visits)
Stats
3 unique visits since November 2008