Brightkite was one of the very first location based services to offer check-in abilities, but on Monday the company announced that they were abandoning that service to focus instead on “group messaging” a field currently occupied by FastSociety and GroupMe.
Starting their mobile phones service in 2007, Brightkite billed itself as a way to discover new places, while keeping tabs on your friends. The company was responsible for creating the idea behind badges and even small rewards for people who checked in at various locations, sound familiar?
Speaking on their one-time ground breaking features, a BrightKite blog post stated:
“These features were the defining element to our company 2 and 3 years ago, but we no longer believe they are sufficiently unique or defining to be our focus, so we are dropping them.”
The newest offering from Brightkite will hit Android mobile devices this week and will provide groups, photos and location sharing.
Users can back up their check-ins from the company’s website if they choose until December 31, while posts will start to disappear from the company’s website starting on December 17.
Were you a loyal user of Brightkite? If you were, let us know your thoughts about the service.
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