There's this guy in my office, Mark. He is the director of IT and gadget geek. He knows about every new technolgy, application, program or interface well before the rest of the known world. His posts to Facebook are automatic? due to an application called BriteKite. According to the BriteKite website: "Brightkite is a popular location-based social network that brings people together around places. Users can follow what their friends are up to, where they are, and annotate places with notes and photos for everybody to see. Brightkite can be used on a variety of different platforms, including the web, mobile web, email, SMS, iPhone, several GPS devices, and more."
I followed up with Mark on the "automatic" question and it is not. But to update his followers to his location is a two step process on his iPhone. He presses a bookmark/button to log-in and then quickly selects one of 20 "placemarks." Then britekite automatically updates to his Facebook account (which is were we see his daily/sometimes hourly posts.) What I found most interesting during his 5 minute demo were the safety features (his daughter also has Britekite but does does disclose exact locations) and a BriteKite wall. If you wished to have a large view format of the wall, you could see everyone that has checked in to a particular site AT that site. For example, if you were at say Atkins LIbrary, UNC Charlotte , as you walk in the door and update your location, you could see on the "big" screen your arrival as well as everyone else that has checked in (or out) of your location and when. Very cool.
