In the last few months I was using some Geotagging services and tried to figure out, how to utilize them into my every day work and travel.
I first started with Plazes, a Germany based startup that was recently acquired by Nokia. For mobile Notebook users this service offers some very convenient search options, integration with lifestream.fm and twitter as well as phone support via SMS.
Although I couldn’t get the SMS service to post my current position, not having to use a smartphone to update the current location is good new for company users with standard cell phones.
during the last week Plazes announced the m.plazes.com mobile website. This gives you most of the features from the full blown application with less network traffic. searching new locations is a bit more complicated but the results have gotten better during my tests.
The second services I tested is BrightKite.com.
In addition to positioning Brightkite also offers photo uploads and short messages. It integrates into Twitter and the most common social networks like Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn.
Additional to the standard Website there are a mobile and an iPhone optimized version at m.bkite.com and i.bkite.com as well as an iPhone application and SMS service available.
The main difference in service is the privacy option in Brightkite. All of your contacts can be set to one of three trust levels: Trusted Friends, Friends and Everyone Else.
Each of these groups receives different details on your current location. You can choose between Exact, City and Hidden, which will not display your location at all.
So while Plazes will always post the complete address of your location to anyone Brightkite will only post the level your chose to twitter and show the details to trusted friends logged into Brightkite.
For me Brightkite currently offers the better overall service, with its easy to use iPhone application and privacy settings.
