Wanting to Meet New Contacts at a Location?

We are all using Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. We can access all of these in our phones using its browser.

Twitter even allows us to receive SMS text message when we received a private message known as Twitter Direct Message (DM) and allows us to send SMS text message to DM our contact. See Twitter Text Commands near the bottom.

But all these three social services does not address real time location awareness and search. We can all search by name, company, network affiliations, current town, zipcode, and many other criteria but not real time location. This is where Brightkite works well.

Brightkite connects people based on the places they visit in the real world. With Brightkite you can see where your friends are, what they’re up to, see what’s going on around you, and meet real-world friends. Most people who have tried the service understand that Brightkite doesn’t really track you, it’s up to you to decide how often you “check in”, and at what accuracy. On top of that, we have pretty comprehensive privacy controls.

When you’re out and about in the real world, you tell Brightkite where you are by checking in at places (you can do this on your phone). Brightkite can then tell you who else is there, who’s been there, what’s happened there, who is nearby etc. Additionally you can post notes and photos at places that others nearby will see. Everything you do in Brightkite is accessible on the website. You can choose who gets to see your stuff by adjusting your privacy settings, but by default everybody can (after all, the idea is to meet people).

Brightkite allows us to

• discover and invite our existing contacts from Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail
• discover and invite people at and nearby our check in place
• share our activity, status updates, and photos to Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr
• receive and send SMS text messages on our phone
• access our account thru our phone browser

Wanting to meet new contacts at a location? Brightkite is the answer! See Brightkite Text Commands near the bottom.





Brightkite Text Commands

Brightkite Phone Number to send SMS text message	In the US, send all text commands to 80289 Outside of the US, send commands to +44 7624 805707
CHECKING IN	@address, city state: Checks you in at the specified address @business name: Find a business to check in at JOIN username: Checks you in at the same places as the specified user
POSTING	SAY message: Posts a note to your current place ! message: Shortcut for “SAY” example: !hi everyone POSTPHOTO: Gets instructions for posting photos
PLACES	WHO: Lists users at your current place PASTVISITORS: Lists previous visitors at your current place MARK placemark: Gives your current place the specified placemark UNMARK placemark: Deletes specified placemark
FRIENDS & USERS	MSG username message: Sendsa direct message to specified user M username message: Shortcut for “MSG” example: M hiro hello there FRIEND username: Send a friend request to the specified user UNFRIEND username: Unfriend specified user NUDGE username: Prompts specified user to check in/post WHERE username: Locates specified user by user’s last check-in BLOCK username: Blocks the specified user WHEREAMI: Tells you where you are currently checked in at PROFILE text: Gets the specified user’s profile SETPROFILE text: Sets your profile to the specified text NAME username: Changes your username
PRIVACY	PUBLIC: Sets your privacy mode to public PRIVATE: Sets your privacy mode to private ON: Turns notifications on OFF: Turns notifications off
NOTIFICATIONS	ON: Turns notifications on OFF: Turns notifications off NN ON: Turns nearby notifications on NN OFF: Turns nearby notifications off NN ALL: Sets nearby notifications to apply to all activity within nearby radius NN FRIENDS: Sets nearby notifications to only apply to friend activity within nearby radius NN CLOSE: Set nearby notifications radius to 20 meters NN BLOCK: Set nearby notifications radius to 200 meters NN NEIGHBORHOOD: Set nearby notifications radius to 2000 meters NN AREA: Set nearby notifications radius to 4000 meters
CANCELING YOUR ACCOUNT	STOP: Disables your account and asks you to confirm before deleting
MOBILE SITES	m.brightkite.com: mobile site i.brightkite.com: iPhone and Android site

Twitter Text Commands

Twitter Phone Number to send SMS text message	In the US, use 40404. In Canada, use 21212. In the UK, Vodafone users can text to the new local UK Vodafone short code 86444; people on all other UK carriers should use +44 7624 801423 In Sweden, use: +46 737 494222 In Germany, use +49 17 6888 50505 Anywhere else, use +44 7624 801423
Turning Twitter off and on: device notifications	ON: turns ALL phone notifications on. OFF: turns ALL phone notifications off. STOP, QUIT: stops all messages to your phone immediately ON username: turns on notifications for a specific person on your phone. For example, ON alissa. OFF username: turns off notifications for a specific person on your phone. For example, OFF blaine. FOLLOW username: this command allows you to start receiving notifications for a specific person on your phone. Example: follow jeremy LEAVE username: this command allows you to stop receiving notifications for a specific person on your phone. Example: leave benfu
Fun Stuff: friends, favorites, and stats!	@username + message: directs a twitter at another person, and causes your twitter to save in their “replies” tab. Example: @meangrape I love that song too! D username + message: sends a person a private message that goes to their device, and saves in their web archive. Example: d krissy want to pick a Jamba Juice for me while you’re there? WHOIS username: retrieves the profile information for any public user on Twitter. Example: whois jack GET username: retrieves the latest Twitter update posted by the person. Example: get goldman NUDGE username: reminds a friend to update by asking what they’re doing on your behalf. Example: nudge biz FAV username: marks a person’s last twitter as a favorite. (hint: reply to any update with FAV to mark it as a favorite if you’re receiving it in real time) Example: fav al3x STATS: this command returns your number of followers, how many people you’re following, and which words you’re tracking. INVITE phone number: will send an SMS invite to a friend’s mobile phone. Example: Invite 415 555 1212
Noteworthy Facts	using on/off username from your phone only stops notifications to the place the command comes from; you’ll still collect a person’s updates on the web. using follow/leave username from your phone is the same as using on/off username following someone from a phone for the first time will also cause you to follow them on the web there is no way to stop following a person on the web without visiting their profile and removing them. The off, leave, stop, and quit commands will only disable updates for the device(s) from which they were sent. you don’t have to use ON/OFF username from the phone, you can also set individual notifcations from a person’s profile page, or check your following page and manage all phone notification settings there.

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