Brightkite Expands Product Line-up With Mobile Apps For Nokia, Palm Phones

29
Jan

Brightkite Expands Product Line-up With Mobile Apps For Nokia, Palm Phones

author: editor category: TechCrunch

Popular location-based social network Brightkite has simultaneously released mobile apps for some Nokia as well as Palm smartphones.

The release of the apps follows earlier launches of Android, BlackBerry and iPhone applications.

The Nokia app can be downloaded from the Ovi Store already and should run fine on all Symbian S60 5th Edition phones, including the Nokia N97 and the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic.

Brightkite curiously doesn’t use its own brand name for the Palm app, which was baptized Parafoil instead. The application was custom-developed for Palm’s WebOS platform and is compatible with the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi devices.

I’m told the reason that it isn’t named Brightkite, is because the program was actually developed by two Brightkite users, John Barker and Kyle Johnson, based on the startup’s open API.

As you can tell from the third screenshot embedded below, Brighkite has adopted the ‘check-in’ moniker to let people update their friends on their current locations and what they’re up to.

Brightkite says the United States remains its biggest market, but that international markets are growing in importance, which prompts the company to expand its range of handset support. The company adds that it currently sees about 2 million people using Brightkite on a monthly basis, across all platforms (though the vast majority uses it on a phone).

Alternatives to Brightkite include Foursquare, Loopt, Gowalla, aka-aki networks and Rummble.