A few weeks ago, I received an invite to Brightkite so I signed up, being the early adopter that I am. What I saw instantly resonated with me.

Before I get into the technical and usability “stuff” let me explain the resonance I had. first there was Twitter which blazed onto the scene with the concept of microblogging in 140 characters or less. Twitter challenged the status quo by being so simplistic that anyone could use it. The beauty of twitter was hidden to the average user, and is still largely missed by people who haven’t used it. The beauty was in the API which allowed people to utilize Twitter from their cell phones (over text message), via desktop clients, and allowed developers to create cool mashups such as Summize (a search tool for Twitter) or Politweets which monitors Twitter for candidate mentions and displays the timeline in a relevant way. In other words, Twitter’s simplicity was the greatest strength for “selling” itself to the masses.

What Twitter didn’t do was provide context to the flow. It is difficult to track conversations. It is difficult to send tweets to only a select group of people.

This is where Pownce showed promise. Pownce took the concept of Twitter and made it contextual. Groups were possible, so I could have “real life friends”, “internet friends”, or “PR bloggers”, for instance. Pownce added the ability to post images or mp3’s so I could share media with my friends. However, until recently, Pownce had no API and the API they do have now is too little, too late. There was no SMS integration so I couldn’t text my comments in while I was sitting in traffic on I-95. I was glued to a website, when I had other things to do, as opposed to having a client that just sat there in the background polling the service and letting me know when there was something important to read. Pownce has the high distinguishment of having the hottest developer, Leah Culver though, so that counts for something.

Brightkite has come along, and though in very early beta, they are building their service around making the service as accessible and easy to use for anyone. Therefore, the simplest of all APIs is text messaging, which Brightkite uses perfectly. The hitch here is a telco hitch. Verizon Wireless, according to Brightkite, cannot support Brightkite because the short code used for interacting, 80289, has not yet been approved by the carrier. Apparently, Verizon is building parental controls for their service to allow parents to restrict access to specific shortcodes and so are not approving anymore codes until that functionality is built. Those of us on Verizon continue to suffer.

However, mobile phone users (including Verizon Wireless) can interact with the service over email as well. Each user account is assigned a unique email address.

In addition to the limitations I’ve already listed, Brightkite is currently a US-only service. So Canadian and other non-US users have to use the email address route.

Brightkite operates primarily around a “Where are you now?” premise - which is different than Twitter which asks “What are you doing now?” Therefore, a primary action within the service is the “check in”. Check ins allow users to say “I’m at Starbucks in Columbia, MD” or “I am at Latitude and Longitude x and y” (think application development in the future with GPS integration on, say, an iPhone or Blackberry).

A lot of early adopters have complained some about the privacy issue here, and indeed it can be an issue. Largely, the specifics of where a person is is controlled by the user. For instance, a check in could be as specific as sending a message “@ 6490 Dobbin Center Way, Columbia, MD” or as generic as “@ Woodlawn, MD”. I use this tactic, for instance, when I check in. I will not give away exact location when I’m at home for privacy and protection reasons. However, when I’m out and about, I will almost always check in with an exact location.

In addition to these privacy options, users have the ability to set their “timeline” as public or private, similar to Twitter. By checking a “Trust User X” box when accepting friendship requests, you can designate with granularity who you want to see your posts, locations, etc.

Brightkite still has a long way to go. Some hurdles that need to be addressed are “threading” of conversations. Pownce does this well. Additionally, it’s a little difficult to respond to users.

I’d encourage a mirroring of the Twitter API. In other words “D user message” should send a private message to the user. “follow user” should send a friend request to the user being followed. “track terms” should give me the ability to see whenever anyone, regardless of friend status, mentions my tracked terms or phrases.

In addition, I’m concerned about the fact that the service is built on Rails. Twitter is the poster child for a bad Rails app, and history shows that, optimized to the extreme, Rails still doesn’t scale well.

Brightkite does provide the ability to cross post to Twitter and gives the user options for what, if anything, actually gets crossposted. However, the biggest complaint I hear from Twitter users is the Brightkite URL appended to every crossposted message. This is bad form, and subtracts from the same 140 character limitation that Twitter enforces.

Largely, I think Brightkite could be a killer app. It does everything that Twitter does well and expands on it by taking some of the better features from other services. But Brightkite is not really about being a “me too” service as much as it is about solving the problem of location. I see the possibility of a mashup service, or a partnership, with activity based companies like WhyGoSolo (no inside knowledge of whether these two are actually seeing this as well).

As a bonus, and if you’ve read this far, I have 10 Brightkite invites to give away for the first 10 commenters requesting one.

Leah Culver Photo courtesy of Tantek, Used under Creative Commons

Earlier this evening, I received word from Google that this site would be included in their technology news site. This is significant because this site has been submitted multiple times before but never qualified. One of the more rigid requirements for Google News inclusion is that a site not be single author. In addition, it’s clear from their requirements is that they are looking for media properties, with a bent toward journalism, and not simply “blogs” (for instance, they require a defined editorial hierarchy).

This won’t mean a lot for regular readers of the site. We have not been included because we’ve drastically altered what we do to conform. In fact, just the opposite, this site continues to evolve and the Google News inclusion rubber stamps who we’ve become.

It may take some time for Technosailor.com stories to appear in the index, though, so we carry on as usual.

I subscribe to a handful of blogs that are completely unrelated to my niche. The reason behind these subscriptions are varied: historical niche coverage that I’ve done (for instance, politics when I got started), friends or associates, really killer blogs related to specific sports teams, etc. There’s different reason. Largely, though, my RSS reader is a smattering of technology news, analysis, business, etc combined with a growing number of search feeds from Technorati, Google Blog Search or Icerocket.

One of the blogs I do subscribe to is Outside the Beltway which is one of the few political blogs that stuck after I stopped covering politics. Occasionally, James covers a topic that has crossover into the Technosailor market. This was one of those posts.

I still think the political space is different than the rest of the blogosphere and is a bit myopic (okay, a lot!), but there’s some great stuff. In his article, James notes that back when he began blogging in 2003(?), bloggers liked to write about blogging.

Unfortunately, it’s still that way today. Am I doing it now?

Largely, he makes a good point inadvertently, that the great blogs today are blogs that have something to say. They might be seen as “media”, depending on the niche. They might be seen as Journalists, depending on the niche. In the tech space, I’d call Gigaom a journalistic property, more than a blog. TechCrunch is largely a media organization, but I do question the journalistic legitimacy of a “publish now, correct later” site (something that Mike acknowledged in a Mesh Conference keynote last year and numerous other times as well).

I don’t want to get broiled down in the question of what is journalism and what is not? I don’t really want to discuss the “media merit” of any site, really.

More importantly, there is an evolution that takes place where a blog goes from a blog to a media property. It’s hard to tell, at least for me, what that point is. Is it when a site gets more than one author? Is it when there is a certain “rate of fire” on posts per day? Per week?

Is it pageviews and eyeballs? Is it simply a nomenclature thing where the Editor stops considering and calling the site a blog and starts referring to it as something else? Is it advertising? Is it the presence and participation in a network?

What’s the difference? Where is the line?

I think it’s obvious that some sites are “media” while others are not, but where and how does this evolution take place?

I expect other people to have different theories than I do, and that’s okay. My feeling is that it’s a combination of all of those things, but mostly it’s how the site is “sold” to readers? I see Technosailor.com, for instance, as a media property. Yes, it’s a blog? But is it?

We’ve recently refreshed the layout of the site to be more of a newspaper look, thanks to a large degree of influence from Huffington Post and The New York Times - both significant, and undeniable, “media outlets”.

Is that enough though? Probably not.

I’ve also hired other writers and contributors with an eye on hiring more as I’m able to recoup costs via advertising and other sponsorship. This is another ingredient, or at least that’s what Google News believes, since it does not accept any sources that don’t have multiple authors.

What’s the difference? Where is the evolutionary point?

It’s simply fascinating that we look up to certain people who begin successful companies. Not to knock them, or anything. They obviously have something working for them. However, you’d never know it from their blogs. In fact, their blogs tell us that they are complete idiots.

Examples.

Biz Stone, founder of Twitter keeps a blog over at http://bizstone.com. Surfing over to his website, you are greeted with:

Hi, I’m Co-founder and Creative Director of Twitter and also helped make Xanga, Blogger, Odeo, and Obvious. I’ve published two books about social media and have a more professional profile on LinkedIn.

Tantalizing.

In fact, the title on his RSS feed is “Biz Stone, Genius”. Brash. Okay. Let’s read some of his headlines to see what this guy is about. In his only posts in April he posts a list of Twitter updates plus, as a bonus, a post on insects and telephones.

Genius.

Let’s go to March, shall we?

All photos. And a Blue Team rah rah!

Come on, Biz. Blog or get off the internet. We read you because you’re a “Genius”, right? We read you because you’ve got something to say about Twitter, Xanga, Blogger or Odeo, right?

Biz is only one of lots of CEOs and executives who are blogging absolute crap. Listen guys, I know blogging is about transparency and being “normal” but isn’t there enough noise out there already? Shouldn’t you guys know this? Don’t you have any signal you can give us?

Give us insights about what you learned at your companies. Tell us how you made a bad decision and learned from it. Tell us about the leadership you garnered from managing a small group of developers in an unfunded startup. Tell us things that make our lives better. Give us something to chew on and make us want to come back.

Don’t just fill space. Don’t waste the bandwidth. Don’t waste the energy. Don’t bait us and tease us into thinking there might be something there when we see you have an update in our RSS reader. You are valuable gold mines and if there’s anything young entrepreneurs need in this world, it’s mentors and people who can inspire and provoke.

Be that person.

Update: Ann Bernard makes the point that CEOs can have a personal blog, but should expect to be associated with their company, even if their blog is personal.

We’re coming up on four years here blogging at Technosailor.com. It’s been a fantastic four years and what better way to celebrate than with a party? We’re still putting some final touches on the plans, including securing a venue, but I can say, “Mark your Calendars” for May 20th.

In addition to four years of past blogging, we’re also drawing a line in the sand and looking forward to the future on our new focus - which we will also be sharing, and hoping you may have already figured out. (Hint: The new layout gives a good idea).

The event will be cash bar unless I can find a sponsor or two to sponsor the event. We may even have a special guest fly in from California for the event. :-) Please come and join me for this very special event - and keep your eyes peeled for more details on the venue.

Update: Please register for the event. First 50 get in. I’m 90% sure on the venue but until I know for sure, I’m leaving it as TBD. It will be in Downtown DC though. And Sponsors are welcome if we want to open the bar. Just email me at aaron@technosailor.com to arrange that. You will get nice love.

Update 2: Livingston Communications will be sponsoring the event which will allow us to open the bar for the first $200. I’m looking for one more sponsor to match that $200 to make sure we can keep the bar open all night.

Update 3: We have confirmed the Austin Grill (Penn Quarters) at 750 E St NW, Washington DC 20004. Light fare will be served along with happy hour prices on alcohol.

Update 4: My Drop Bin is sponsoring the event. Still more needed. Thanks, Jimmy!