Jacob Burke, like me, is taking a Brightkite break. His reasons are very close to my own. He writes:
“There are things about the site that had me hooked for quite a while. But, I am starting to notice that it gets annoying to update my status on Brightkite and then go and check Twitter to see what everyone else is up to.” … “Don’t get me wrong, I think Brightkite is a stellar network and they have a number of features that I really like. It is nice to go back through my history of updates to see where I have sent updates from and where my travels have led me for that week, I am also a fan of being able to comment on posts. But, there are also things that I am still waiting for – a desktop application, more search options, timestamps in my timezone, and less downtime.”
I experienced very little downtime on Brightkite though I didn’t take full advantage of the SMS features, which is where a lot of downtime happens on these services.
By way of update, I’m keeping my current location up-to-date on Brightkite. It appears on the sidebar of my blog and I like keeping track of the places I’ve been. I still don’t know how long this break I am taking will last.
Brightkite is most useful and usable when you don’t have to go out of your way (much) to update it. I used it sparingly until the iPhone app came out, which made the location finding and check-in process take 3-4 clicks (+ sometimes type one word to search). If you’re restricted to only using the web, you can try creating as many placemarks as you can, then bookmark the placemarks screen.
As far as consuming the content, Netvibes is the only thing I can think of right now that would work. It should live-update and it allows you to type in a password for your friendstream RSS.
I was in Boulder, CO (Brightkite’s home town) back in February and heard about an awesome desktop app that could automatically check you in when you join known WiFi networks. It sounds like it might not be online yet…