Jonathan M. Lane's dashboard

Jonathan M. Lane started following the problem "info sticks on flickr uploadr for blackberry" in Flickr.

A comment on the question "How to add my Place" in Brightkite:

I hope I don't come off as rude, Lesley, since I appreciate you taking the time to keep us up-to-date with the situation at BrightKite; however, it is extremely annoying to always get these ambiguous responses that don't actually give us any real detail or timeline in regard to these changes "in the pipeline". I imagine this is because you may not have access to that information, but you should consider asking whomever does to think seriously about giving BrightKite's fans a bit more to be excited about. I frequently wonder if BrightKite isn't just having trouble staying afloat since there hasn't really been much tangible updates at all in recent memory, as far as I am aware.

Thanks for your time to address your fans' concerns and especially for your patience with me. – Jonathan M. Lane, on June 26, 2009 21:55

Jonathan M. Lane replied on June 26, 2009 18:04 to the question "How to add my Place" in Brightkite:

Why is this the case? I imagine it might have to do with the way the *same* physical place is actually multiple place objects owned by various different users, making for too many search results if the location search queried all users place objects. I hope this isn't how it is being handled, since it would make much more sense to allow users to share place objects and allow them to merge places that logically are the same (with the consensus of the original place objects' owners).

Is there a public developer/testing forum available for BrightKite? I really like the service but I think it needs a lot of work. Based on the interaction I see from users and developers here, there isn't much outward indication of progress on this application. I would like to offer my assistance in a more proactive manner of providing feedback and testing on upcoming features or changes (I am used to working with development snapshots with software I use frequently).

Jonathan M. Lane marked one of Lesley's replies in Brightkite as useful. Lesley replied to the question "How to add my Place".

A comment on the problem "post locations cannot be changed" in Brightkite:

Ah, duplicate post. More up-to-date discussion on this issue over at http://getsatisfaction.com/brightkite... – Jonathan M. Lane, on June 26, 2009 17:53

Jonathan M. Lane replied on June 26, 2009 17:50 to the question "Can I edit location on photos/posts? (they often get mis-located)" in Brightkite:

What I think would make sense is allowing a user to correct a location by doing an internal search on "place" objects created by 1) the user, 2) other nearby users, 3) friends, etc., looking for the same or a similar place name.

If a user notices they checked-in/posted/noted at the wrong place, they would most likely (not always, depending on elapsed time) update their location or post from the correct location, creating the proper "place" object in the backend database.

Simply allow a user to "merge" a poorly chosen place with another existing place, and if no other place exists, allow them to change the coordinates/location of the "placemark" like you can do with Google Maps API.

Of course, in order to prevent abuse, you should allow a maximum amount of edits before locking the "place" for a minimum amount of time. It would also be wise to make sure a timestamp and "this location has been editted by $user" message is added to the place/post for transparency.

Jonathan M. Lane marked one of Lesley's replies in Brightkite as useful. Lesley replied to the question "Can I edit location on photos/posts? (they often get mis-located)".

A comment on the idea "Checking *out*" in Brightkite:

@donpdonp, what "'future checkins' thread"? Are you just mentioning an already existing feature request on GetSatisfaction, or is this feature available somewhere already? – Jonathan M. Lane, on June 26, 2009 17:41

Jonathan M. Lane replied on June 26, 2009 17:36 to the question "searching these places north of dublin all end up with "Rathcore" - which is way off the mark." in Brightkite:

Does the search function basically have all the same functionality as the Google Maps API search functions? As in, can I search by decimal and degree based coordinates?

Jonathan M. Lane replied on June 26, 2009 17:25 to the problem "post locations cannot be changed" in Brightkite:

How is that coming along?

Jonathan M. Lane replied on June 23, 2009 14:45 to the question "Check Out" in Brightkite:

Agreed, on both counts.

Jonathan M. Lane started following the idea "Import Twitters *into* BrightKite notes?" in Brightkite.

Jonathan M. Lane replied on May 27, 2009 13:32 to the question "SMS Confirmation Received, but SMS commands do not work. Canadian Phone. Carrier - Telus." in Brightkite:

I am in the same boat: Same telco., same situation, same problem.

It would be wonderful to have some legitimate SMS support for Canada, but like Chris mentioned above, Canadian telcos are pretty ridiculous and I could see many problems involved with setting up a Canadian shortcode.

I don't imagine there has been any progress in this area as of late, but I look forward to a time when SMS support for Canadians might be a reality.

Jonathan M. Lane marked one of Lesley's replies in Brightkite as useful. Lesley replied to the question "SMS Confirmation Received, but SMS commands do not work. Canadian Phone. Carrier - Telus.".

Jonathan M. Lane started following the question "SMS Confirmation Received, but SMS commands do not work. Canadian Phone. Carrier - Telus." in Brightkite.

Jonathan M. Lane started following the idea "Checking *out*" in Brightkite.

Jonathan M. Lane started following the idea "Give us a "check out" feature..." in Brightkite.

Jonathan M. Lane replied on May 27, 2009 12:52 to the idea "Check Out on the Web" in Brightkite:

4 months since the last update on this front...

I don't see how implementing a little "check out of your current location" button somewhere on the web site UI is such a big deal?

It really cheapens your web site when certain core functionality is unavailble and can only be accessed through SMS or email "UIs".

Jonathan M. Lane started following the idea "Check Out on the Web" in Brightkite.

Jonathan M. Lane started following the question "Check Out" in Brightkite.