It's here: Brightkite 2.0!

October 6th, 2009

Today we’re excited to announce the shiny new Brightkite. First off we want to apologize for downtime associated with this update, there were some major changes under the hood that required us to be offline, this won’t happen with subsequent releases. Thank you for your patience.

So, it’s been months in the making, we’ve had countless bleary-eyed nights, but Brightkite 2.0 is now here. Brightkite’s design and technology have been re-built and re-envisioned, practically from the ground up. We have a vision for the future, and 2.0 is the beginning and foundation to get us there. The next chapter in Brightkite will be an exciting one and we need your help. Give us your suggestions, tell us your pain points (we do listen), and together we will continue to build awesome things.

In addition to the unseen upgrades under the hood, 2.0 includes many new features that you can see. Here’s some of what’s new:

Pick Your Friends, Gain Your Fans

Since one of our goals is to enable face-time over screen-time, we’ve redesigned Brightkite friendships to resemble those in the real-world. In 2.0 people can “subscribe” to your public posts by becoming a fan, but only you decide who’s a friend. Just like the real world, friends may see posts that fans can’t and can have privileges that fans don’t. This new asymmetrical model takes the pressure off of having to accept friend requests from people who are not really friends.

Privacy Settings for the Real World

We’ve redesigned the sharing options for simple yet powerful privacy. With one click you can share with friends and/or everyone. Additionally, we’ve added the ability to share with Twitter & Facebook on an individual post basis, and the capability to post with no location at all.

Streams to Order

We’ve redesigned streams for the ultimate exploring experience. We’ve added filters and search boxes that allow customization of the people, locations, and type of posts you want to see, all on the fly. Take for example: Martinis in San Francisco, Food in Japan or Unicorns Everywhere.

Stats

Stats are the beginning of wave of neat features we have planned around places and profiles. At a glance you can see number of views on your posts, popularity of a given post, visitors to a place, etc…

PlaceSnapping™ Enhancements

PlaceSnapping™, a favorite feature you’re all familiar with from v1, is now much more place-snappier. We’ve enhanced the underlying technology and are actively tweaking it to match the places you go. The more you use it the better it gets, reducing the time it takes to make a post, allowing more fun with your friends rather than your handset.

2.0 iPhone App, awaiting approval from Apple

The app has been submitted and is waiting approval. It’s in Apple’s hands now but in the meantime we’ve posted some screenshots. The app should appear within a week or two but anything changes, we will let you know.

Below is a list of other notable features and improvements in 2.0. Better yet, discover them for yourself.

Notable 2.0 improvements:

- Live stream updates

- Updated Public API

- Ability to rate posts (thumbs up/thumbs down)

- Favorite Places (used to be Placemarks)

- New user and place statistics

- Updated mobile site: m.brightkite.com

- Persistent location bar

- Improved posting flow

- New UI design

- Improved scalability

- Various SMS improvements

- AJAX improvements

- Bunches and bunches o’ other fixes

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Posted by Brady Becker at 7:06 AM in Product

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