I’ve been playing with Foursquare lately since they added Indianapolis to their list of cities. I was waiting on it to come to the city and now it’s here. I’m not sure it’s really what I expected at all.
I’ve been using Brightkite for quite awhile and honestly I thought that Foursquare and Brightkite would be competitors, but they’re really not. In my opinion Brightkite is purely a geo-location update service that allows you to check-in so people can know where you are and potential meet you out somewhere.
Brightkite is tightly integrated into Google mapping functionality and you can lookup a location and if it’s in Google maps you can check-in at that location. Your friends and fans can be alerted to your location updates and respond. You can also share comments and photos from the locations you’re at as well.
Foursquare is more of a social event and function website. I get the impression that what you’re doing is more important than necessarily where you’re at. Foursquare doesn’t seem to be connected to any mapping service under the hood because if you check-in somewhere for the first time, you have to add the address details and location yourself. I’ve rarely checked in somewhere where I didn’t have to do this, and those times were because I’d already entered the information myself earlier.
With Foursquare you collect points for checking in at various locations and you can earn badges for being the person that checks in to a location more than anyone else. You also leave "Tips" for people on what they should do when they’re at a location.