BrightKite a hit at PAB2008?

by | May 18, 2008 | blog, social media

The latest social media darling buzzing around Twitter is BrightKite. Well, among my Twitter friends anyway.

First let me explain that a good chunk of the people I follow on Twitter are fellow podcasters who I met at PodCamp Toronto and/or Podcasters Across Borders. We are all heavy Twitter users and most of us tend to try out new social media stuff that comes out.

That’s why I’m thinking that BrightKite may be a key tool at this year’s PAB (um, Podcasters Across Borders).

So what is BrightKite?

On the surface, BrightKite looks to be like Twitter. You see what your friends are up to and you post what you’re doing. The only difference is you can post photos that you took with your cellphone. Oh, and you also post your physical whereabouts.

You can also take a peek at what others near you are doing.

Aside from the obvious expected privacy worry…

You can see how I can safely assume BrightKite being useful for conferences like PAB.

  1. Just like Twitter, you can be kept updated on where impromptu meetups are taking place. I explained how Twitter helped A LOT with this at PodCamp Toronto back in February. For instance, groups of people get together and find a place to eat and chat. But it’s hard to find a place that has tables for 30 people on a Saturday night! Twitter— and BrightKite— lets everyone update each other. Just be ready for repeat smses.Pub a is full. Going to pub b.
  2. People go to conferences to meet up with old friends. Same thing happens at PAB (and PodCamp). Imagine attendees taking photos of each other, landmarks, etc. and posting it to, well, yeah, ok, people already do that with Flickr but what if they post them to BrightKite? Instant icebreaker for newbies (or is that noobs?), too!

Anyhoo, I don’t claim to be a predictor of the next best thing. This is only something I pondered. Would be fun if it turned out to be true. Of course, that would only depend if everyone at PAB uses BrightKite.

Speaking of which, I have 5 BrightKite invites left. Send me an email (by clicking on the ‘contact me’ link on the left nav) if you want one.