Why BrightKite?
Ever since I discovered the whole GPS on my cellphone thing back in 2005, I’ve been hoping for a Location Based Service (LBS) to allow me to simply click a button and say “you are here, share with everyone?” When Brightkite launched back in .. 2007, I was sold. “This is perfect for meeting up and organizing during conferences and conventions!”. Aside from the lack of direct upload via GPS to the site, it was damn near everything I could want an LBS to be, an application that can be used to physically connect with actual humans within my immediate vicinity. Awesome!
In walk Foursquare and Gowalla, way later. They have cute badges or stickers, they game their users into chasing a point structure, they even found a way to throw a biscuit at you for frequenting places (Foursquare’s promotion of local businesses & offering special to mayors of places, for example).
Dandy. I’m not interested, and in true Scoble fashion, “here’s why”.
I can appreciate the approach these websites are taking, and I can understand their interest in creating a game to keep their users becoming lemmings over retrieving points, badges and mayor statuses. I can understand their motivation, from a business aspect, why the incentives for “frequent place visitors” is important for revenue. But in the end? It’s a cattle coral to get you to chase down places, check in to them, share a tip, and hopefully score some imaginary thing and have it put an icon on your account. Where’s the community value?
What’s wrong with Foursquare:
1. It’s a coupon machine
2. It’s a game
3. It doesn’t support community
4. You can’t find people near you
5. The mobile web-interface is absolutely terrible
What’s wrong with GoWalla:
1. It’s a “sticker” machine.. for digital pack-rats it looks like.
2. The UX is awkward
3. iPhone and Android only? Next…
4. Have you seen their mobile interface?
5. It’s way too “cute” to take seriously
6. You can’t find people near you
7. It doesn’t support community
Yelp provides an LBS, I believe… This, I haven’t played with but I definitely will.
Why BrightKite?
In a word. People. It’s about us. It’s about finding those you know. It’s about connecting when you’re out and about. You could check in at a pub, have a friend check in four doors down, get a notification, and shoot a text, “I’m around the corner from you, let’s meet up and grab a beer!” or whatever.
Additionally there are services attached like the photo-sharing experience which is repetitive of say, Tweetphoto and TwitPic, but at the same time – LBS’s should have photos of locations, this allows us to preview what it looks like before we even go. Check out the atmosphere… That’s sort of important. More so than say… Who the mayor is, or what some random person you don’t know said about their pesto.
None are perfect
I want GPS powered apps for Maemo or S60 to roll around. I won’t get in to why I will never, in a gazillion years, own an iProduct. I’ve ranted about that enough. I do, however, understand that since I’m in a 2% minority in the United States with my Nokia preference, so that’ll probably never happen.
All it would take for Foursquare to be better than Brightkite is to ditch the stupid game, become community/people-centric, leave the “business” layer intact, and let people post photos… to name a few.
All it would take for Brightkite to be better would be to be more business centric, in that it needs to accept business names to be coupled with addresses, if applicable… that’s pretty much it.
…
Truth be told, I could live without any changes to Brightkite. I like to share where I’m at, find out if anyone I know is near-by, and show people what it looks like where I be. If the pesto rocks? I’ll post a note. I don’t need to be the damned mayor or some place and get a cookie dangled at me on my phone for it. I don’t need a badge, I don’t need a sticker. I like community, I want community, and LBS, for me? Is about the people. Simple as that. Here’s where I went tonight:
https://brightkite.com/objects/6b0066fcb39ea3742ca06218953725c5
Selfish Media Experts
There has been a ton of Social Media Expert (SME) talk this past week; in fact, I haven’t seen this much banter out that “profession” since around the turn of the year. Full circle, I guess.
The Easy Disguise
It’s simple to appear as though you know about Social Media, but in the end, if you can’t actually deliver business strategy, an execution plan, and measurable results, you’re merely an ineffective evangelist that knows how to tweet. What’s it take to create a business strategy for Social Media? Try market research, for one. Developing an online brand personality for a corporation is another good step. How about the actual philosophy behind that personality? Determining how these plan segments will affect the path of execution and the outcome of those actions is also key.
Even more fun is to determine the outcome of your actions in a specified market without merely going through the motions from one client to the other, mirroring your actions of “oh, you need a twitter page, you need a Facebook page, and a blog”, repeat. That’s not building a community, that’s establishing the bare minimum platform for a company. Will be it effective? Surely, depending on how it’s used and how the company is portrayed.
Take in to account the necessities of the company you’re working with, profile the company, their demographic, identify relative trends for their market…
If you can’t do these things – just stop what you’re trying to do. Chances are you’re causing more harm than good, and keeping Social Media in the realm of “little kid in big sandbox” when it comes to Old Media, and even New Media.
Selfish Media
See, this is what bothers me. The clowns that are pimping their ability to make a Facebook page and sign up on Twitter as a service are killing an industry and market that otherwise is flourishing with opportunity for business. These selfish money chasing idiots are the ones that leech on to an otherwise skilled profession, learn just enough to be dangerous at it, and scalp businesses. They do it every day, and they ruin it for those that actually know what they’re doing.
Hey, Selfish Media Experts! You’re causing damage. Do you realize what it takes to regain the trust of a client? Probably not, but just imagine the energy that goes in to losing the trust of a client. Now amplify that by 100x. That’s what it takes.
Your grimy, bottom feeding type of person did the same thing to Systems Administration at the turn of 2000; and have been doing it to Web Development for ages, and frankly – it makes me ill.
Learn Enough to Help, not Harm
I’m not greedy. I don’t want everyone in the space that isn’t highly qualified to leave. But how about reaching out to people that are seasoned, and educated first? How about trying to learn the ropes before you hang yourself and others in your tangled mess? It’s really not that hard if you’re dedicated and truly love it. In fact, chances are, you’ll spend the same amount of energy faking your talent than actually learning it. So just suck it up, and learn what it takes to do your job right. Stop jacking up the Internet.
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That’s all for my Motivational Monday, end of 2009 soapbox, speech. New Year’s Resolution suggestion: Actually learn about what you’re doing.
Posted via email from Enrique’s posterous
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