Social Networking I Have Known: Foursquare and Brightkite

Part two of an irregular series in which I talk (not particularly knowledgeably) about the Social Media things I've done. And usually withdrawn from at least once.

Could you imagine texting with these nails, on this? I can't. My mind is officially Sparkle-blown.
via We Heart It

I grouped these together, because my limited experience of Brightkite was as a kind of location based messaging service. Either I was using it all wrong or it turned on it's heel and became something entirely different, because it now seems to be some kind of group texting service? Anyways, for the purpose of this let us say: I am talking about location-based services.

Essentially, any opinion that I have on either service is preceded by the fact that I think that location-based services are a bit creepy. I don't want people to know where I am all the time,  especially if that place is my home, and given the fact that my "real life" and "online life" friends and acquaintances rarely co-incide. In the end it was this that ended my brief love affair with Brightkite - particularly a conversation in which Shannon was unimpressed that both Mark (Maetl) and I had listed his house on Brightkite. I think his hesitancy to have all and sundry find his house is pretty understandable, all things considered.

The Foursquare thing has been a more recent experience, and I confess that it was fun while I just checked into places around town. Eventually this became rather dull and repetitive and constantly logging on to the local 3G network with my phone was costing me money that I simply don't have. This problem is possibly greater for New Zealand users - here the Wi-Fi is pretty shite (not public at all, and not well established in most cafes etc), and I feel as thought the effectiveness of the service relies on the availability of free Wi-Fi networks (am happy to be proved wrong though).

New Zealand fails at Foursquare in another way too - that is, that as the population is fairly limited, there just isn't enough people to make playing Foursquare interesting or worthwhile except for a fairly short period of time. I guess it would be cool if you could find out that your bestie was in the coffee shop down the road and surprise them, but I didn't really know the people on my Foursquare radar that well. At any rate, I wouldn't surprise them with cat ears or cake. And maybe it's creepy to stalk people that way and follow them about? It will be interesting to see the wider implications of FB's adoption of location services as I think this is kind of likely to happen through that. Imagine all those people you've been avoiding in a low level way since high school finding you and coffeeshop-bombing your pre-caffeinated mornings? GROSS.

Finally, I'd like to imagine that I was tarred with the brush of the early adopter. People who don't do social networky things would nod and smile when I mentioned my Foursquare obsession - I told the people who ran the local cafe that I was the Mayor there and their response was (and I quote) "*crickets*". I know that in the US various schemes have been set up where Foursquare Mayors are given discounts on meals and free coffees and free entry into the Brooklyn Museum, but I guess that there has to be some sort of critical mass reached before it's worthwhile for a business to offer these kind of promotional whatnots. I think that it's probably a while off here, and for the time being I'm more than happy to withdraw and rejoin later if things develop. Yes, I'm that flakey.