“Where Are You?” - The Brightkite Platform.

September 5th, 2007

It is ironic that after years using the Internet to access information from around the globe, the next frontier is to access information from around the corner. Finding local information is made possible thanks to location-based services that know a userâ€™s location. Currently there are many interesting location based services in the market such as friend finders, geo-tagging apps, as well as services that let you find local businesses.

The problem is that these services have no unified way of answering the question â€œWhere are you?â€ . The method is currently service dependent, whether it be sending an e-mail, sending a text message, or using a mobile app. Additionally it has to be done for each service individually.

This is where Brightkite comes in.

Brightkite simplifies what is currently a complex landscape of user-locating methods by making it easy for consumers to answer the question â€œWhere are you?â€ . In turn Brightkite shares a users given location across multiple location-based applications. Consumers benefit because it eliminates the need to remember different locating methods for each service. Users can pick the method that works best for them and share their location information with the applications of their choice.

At the beginning of TechStars our team was gung-ho about creating location dependent applications such as a location blogger and a proximity friend finder. We soon discovered with each application we were forced to answer the same fundamental question of “Where is the user?”. Not necessarily an easy question to answer semantically or technologically. Instead of solving the problem of “Where are you?” over and over again for each application, it was clear that we needed a location platform that allowed multiple apps to query, and update a users given location. On the user experience side, we knew it needed to be as easy as possible for users to tell Brightkite their location. The Brightkite Location Platform solves our user location problem by answering the question “Where are you?” . Now that we have an effective way to answer this question, we can focus our efforts on what our team is passionate about, applications that leverage a users location.

This is a very high level description of the Brightkite Location Platform. Of course what good is a platform that has no applications? Since the location applications were the impetus for the platform we definitely have some compelling apps in the works. Thats not all, in the coming weeks we will announce more details on the platform and something that developers interested in creating their own LBS applications will be excited about.

Posted by Brady Becker at 6:35 PM in Uncategorized