jjprojects: our social web

I agree with you entirely… I think the stalking factor is totally down to the users common sense…. Would you put your home address on your house keys???? It’s purely peoples mindset when they join these social networks they often dont contemplate the consequences until it’s too late – and once this happens you can guarentee that it’ll get sensationalised by the media and bloggers – I can see the headlines – “I got stalked on brightkite!” Yes but it was your choice to broadcast your home address, let people know when your at home and when your out. safety online is key. Have fun with the tools and communities, but know where the limits are.

If your going to post your exact location, then it’s asking for trouble – for example a burglar knows your address, and when your home… checking in at work on brighkite… and bingo… this means your house is probably empty!!!!

There’s a lot to comment on here! great vid :)

1) re: twitter with pictures, I tend to use twitpic in this fashion. I HAD been using my flickr stream for all sorts of one-off phone photos, but this allows me to keep these little one-offs in their place (http://twitpic.com/photos/4fthawaiian).

2) “Stalking” – A lot of people tout social media sites like twitter for their “transparency”, particularly with relation to business and people marketing things on the ‘net. I suppose stalkerism is a natural by-product of this “transparency”. Once people know so much about you, they feel as though they’re part of your life, and, for some, this can turn ugly.. I accidentally used brightkite to broadcast my home address to twitter, which sucked. Luckily, I don’t seem to generate any “fan boys” or stalkers.. as yet ;)

Again, great post! Lots of thought fodder..

I think “posting your exact location all the time” is definitely going too far, at least for public consumption. I think a degree of “fuzzing” is required. I do it myself, by only posting the suburb I’m in, ever. And I don’t post my location to Twitter. But that’s my choice.

I figure if someone really wants to know where I live, they can look in the phone book. I guess I’m relying on “small fish syndrome”, and the ability to choose my followers carefully.

As I say, I’m never going to be able to keep someone from stalking me if they really want to. And I like my friends knowing where I am; there’s some real potential for serendipitous meetups there. But I keep it vague, because while I can’t *stop* somebody stalking me, I certainly don’t want to make it too easy.

Could be a serious concern. I know of one person who was robbed when he left his car in the long term carpark at the airport – keys and address in the glovebox. The police caught the people responsible, so the link to the airport was a proven one.

You address some great points in this video.

I love how one can in effect “geo tag” photos that you take when you are out and about; take a quick snapshot and are able to then share with others on Brightkite and twitter. Generating immediate response without clogging up flickr stream with trivial photos and not having to find and post the flickr link back on twitter.

As for the stalker factor. I think it is a genuine concern. I think just posting the suburb should be sufficient, but I guess it is up to the user. It is more the real time aspect of people seeing where I am at any given time that would freak me out.

I think it has potential if people use it for more than just another *twitter*. An associate pitched the idea of using it as a marketing tool for one of his fortune 500 clients and they seemed very excited.

Location based social networking and marketing… yes! That refers to people who actually leave their house/office and interact with other humans.

Yeah, I like the idea in practice, I have no problems posting when I am working, but when I’m home I post “Mildura”, and that’s it. I don’t care if you want to suss out the places where I do jobs (businesses) anyway. To be honest, I’m probably the only person in Mildura on the thing.

I think Brightkite is a cool idea, but I can tell there’s going to be a big shitfight on this thing eventually.

John,
Thanks for starting this discussion. You bring up some valid points, and I wanted you to know that we are not ignoring them.

We tried to build the right privacy controls into Brightkite from the start. However, throughout the beta, it’s become clear that some people will still shoot themselves in the proverbial foot by posting sensitive locations. We have some ideas on how to prevent that, which we will introduce in the coming weeks.

If you have suggestions on how we could address your concerns, we’d love to hear them.

Best,
Martin
Founder, brightkite.com

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For me personally, just to be safe I’d never actually mark the exact location of my home, but I don’t mind so much about posting the location of a public place. I mean, what the chance of someone recognising me amongst the hundreds or so city dwellers.

I do like the ability to mark a place and able to post pictures related of that location, it’s like seeing the place in a perspective of a human (as opposed to something like streetview).

But also, since I’m only living temporarily (here in Melbourne), I guess I’m rather lenient about it. I suppose it’ll also come handy for travel.

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