Why Brightkite Works

I was reading this post by Todd Mundt about is recent thoughts on Brightkite and it inspired me to write my own post.

See Todd’s explanation of Brightkite:
Brightkite  you share your current location (to a level of accuracy that you control) with friends and others; you can create notes, ala twitter, and you can upload photos from your computer or phone. It might be a fun way to find out where your friends are (remember Dodgeball?) so you can meet up with them.

To start I admit it, I am an early adopter, I love to try things as soon as they come out, especially if they are web apps. However, just because I try them doesn’t mean I will continue to use them, in fact I don’t continue to use most of the apps I try.

So what was different about Brightkite? How did it rise to the top?

For me it is because Brightkite touches on a bigger set of issues, the rise of the local web and merging online and offline connections. For so long much of the content on the Internet has had a global focus instead of a local one, the fact that Brightkite brings the web as local as an exact street address helps give web content an offline location and makes it personal.

Didn’t you hate it when you would talk to a friend just to realize you were out to dinner at the same place the night before? I did, it is amazing how many social connections can be missed so easily.

So to me I use Brightkite because it actually provides value on and offline.

It also uses a SMS based mobile system meaning that it works with most cell phones unlike other mobile service such as Qik. Not having that hardware divide is important because for me to continue using Brightkite for the long term they will need to continue to build their user base past early adopters.  If Brightkite users needed a $400 cell phone to use the service it would have major user adoption issues.

That being said Brightkite has worked great for me in social situations so far. BlogCarolinas last week I was able to know that folks had arrived to the conference and was able to meet up with them thanks to Brightkite and it has proved much more reliable than Twitter up to now.