In part, this is an attempt to justify my recent purchase of some high-end screencasting software, but more so it’s my way of giving back a bit of what I’ve learned about web design, development and the internet. Anyway, I thought it’d be fun to have them cross-posted so that you all can see a bit more of what I’m up to.

Don’t let this little notice distract you though! Check out today’s Chicago Thursday post now!!!

What’s going on!?!?

You’re using brightkite–a location-based social networking service.

Here’s what just happened above. First, you changed your visibility on the network by texting public to the brightkite shortcode 80289. You can always go private again by texting, you guessed it, private. Next, you had the keyword argo setup in your “placemarks” so it knew where to check you in.  If you hadn’t had this placemark setup you’d get a text back asking you which argo you wanted to checkin at — 3135 N Broadway or 2485 N Clark. I suggest setting up placemarks for places you frequent. If you don’t, it’ll always be guessing and while it’s guessing is supposed to be based on your last checkin location it’s not perfect–it thought I was in CA when I told it @melrose yesterday. So, back to the above story, you had “nearby notifications” turned on, so that’s why you received the text about the other brightkite users at your location. Turn on nearby notifications by texting nn on to the bright kite number. You change your nearby notification settings quite easily via texts … text nn friends to receive only info about friends near by or text nn all for info about any bright kite users near by. The radius of these notifications can be changed with the following commands: nn close, nn block, nn neighborhood, nn area. If you don’t like having the nearby notifications turned on, you can always manually check to see who’s near your location by texting who. So, anyhoo, you then posted a message to the location — !hello fellow argo people. If you’d felt like it you could have also taken a photo and posted it the location (instructions for that are on your account settings page — different for every user, or text postphoto to get instructions texted to your phone).  Back with our story above, you blocked douchebag123 (block username) and then directly messaged hipster123. (m username message). friend username sent a friend request. There are other things too that you could have done which are fun–For instance, want to see everyone who’s ever been to that Argo? Or see if any photos or messages have been left there? Text pastvisitors and find out.

Pwhew. Yeah–alot to remember but there’s a nitfy little pocketguide if you want it: http://brightkite.com/brightkite_pocket_reference.pdf