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googlemapapi replied on August 28, 2008 03:14 to the problem "Overlapping icons in map views" in Brightkite:

nothing useful information..

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A comment on the problem "Incorrect results from location search" in Brightkite:

Tried a couple lookups tonight and business/location search has gotten noticeably better. Whatever you're doing, keep heading in that direction. Thanks for your work!! – Steve Baker, on July 07, 2008 08:41
Brady replied on July 03, 2008 17:00 to the problem "Overlapping icons in map views" in Brightkite:

Hi we will hopefully be addressing the mapping issues very soon.

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WarpedJester replied on July 03, 2008 16:17 to the problem "Overlapping icons in map views" in Brightkite:

like the prog, hate the issues im having with the page not loading right in my Maxthon browser

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Evert replied on July 03, 2008 15:51 to the problem "Overlapping icons in map views" in Brightkite:

''You're already 10x better than the other stuff out there.'' I second that! :D

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Dylan replied on July 03, 2008 15:47 to the problem "Overlapping icons in map views" in Brightkite:

My co worker and I are at the same address so the icons overlap at any zoom level. It completely hides the other icon. Good to see you guys are aware. Just putting my 2 cents in.

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Ben replied on July 02, 2008 23:39 to the problem "Double posts in friend stream" in Brightkite:

Yup, I see notes and pictures doubled up.

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Lesley replied on July 02, 2008 22:21 to the problem "Double posts in friend stream" in Brightkite:

Ben, we are looking into the duplicates right now. Thanks for letting us know.

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A comment on the problem "Incorrect results from location search" in Brightkite:

Thanks, Lesley. At least there's some sort of workaround. For now, I've moved away from SMS entirely. m.brightkite.com is really helpful - hope the team keeps rockin' that. :-) – Steve Baker, on July 02, 2008 22:02
Steve Baker started following the question "My "What's Happening" stream is not updating." in Brightkite.
Steve Baker replied on July 02, 2008 21:56 to the problem "Double posts in friend stream" in Brightkite:

I never see *notes* in my stream doubled up, but yes, I do have lots of *check-ins* that are doubled up. Weird.

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Steve Baker started following the problem "Double posts in friend stream" in Brightkite.
Ben started following the problem "Incorrect results from location search" in Brightkite.
Lesley replied on July 02, 2008 17:10 to the problem "Incorrect results from location search" in Brightkite:

Steve, I have found that I get better results if I check in to a location that is closer to the business that I'm searching. For instance, I checked in at San Mateo, CA and got no results (like you said), but when I checked in at San Francisco, CA and searched for "AT&T Park" it was the 7th listing.

As a side note, we are aware that our system handles ampersands kind of funky and we are working to fix this bug. Knowing this, I tried a search for "AT and T Park" and it came up as the first listing. "San Francisco Giants" is also a valid search in this case and brings up the correct location as the first listing.

We know business searches can be frustrating sometimes, and we are working to make this better. We really appreciate your input.

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Steve Baker replied on July 02, 2008 11:49 to the problem "Incorrect results from location search" in Brightkite:

I'm with my wife at tonight's Cubs/Giants baseball game in downtown San Francisco. I want to check into Brightkite from the stadium and send some photos.

Pretty standard stuff. So here's the Brightkite setup.

My last checkin was from San Mateo, CA. The name of the stadium is "AT&T Park", so I send:

"?at&t park"

Brightkite returns the results you see here:
http://brightkite.com/places/search?q...

Namely:
(1) Laura Lamp at Salon 35
(2) Miller, David E - David E Miller Attorney at Law
(3) AT & T (good! but it's a retail outlet, not the park)
(4) Howie & Smith Attorneys at Law
(5) James Frangos Attorney at Law
(6) Leff Steven Attorney at Law
(7) ... eh, who really cares at this point. I give up.

No AT&T Park. Nothing even slightly related to baseball or the stadium or anything.

Correct answer: Google's got it at result #1.

"at&t park" near "san mateo, ca":
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=l&hl=en...

AT&T Park. 24 Willie Mays Plaza, San Francisco, CA. There you go.

That's what's so tremendously frustrating about this. I don't want to bitch too much because I know it's not Brightkite's fault. You're just passing on Yahoo Location Search results.

But it's core functionality and I can't think of a workaround, so I'm hoping it gets fixed soon. I wanna pimp you guys out, but I stopped doing Brightkite demos to new friends since the demos usually fail at this step.

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Steve Baker reported a problem in Brightkite on June 29, 2008 01:31:

Incorrect results from location search
Brightkite often does a terrible job at location search (examples provided below).

I often try to check in using the "?" syntax, but then give up and forget about it because Brightkite returns such terrible results.

Based on the results I get from Brightkite, it looks like you're just using the Yahoo Location Search API. So it's not really your fault, but ... yeah.

You guys really, really should move to Google's Local Search API (http://code.google.com/apis/ajaxsearc...) or to some other geo API that returns better results:

Here are a few real world examples:
___________________________________________
(1) "?vinyl room" near San Mateo, CA

The "Vinyl Room" is a bar in nearby Burlingame, CA.

Brightkite returns these results:
http://brightkite.com/places/search?q...

A bunch of furniture shops and flooring specialists. Wrong. The real "Vinyl Room" is nowhere to be found in those results at all.

Correct answer:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=l&hl=en...

Google gets it right.

I tried checking in from Vinyl Room the other day. Was there with a bunch of friends and hoped to show off how bad ass Brightkite was. But Brightkite SMS and I went back and forth a ton of times with incorrect results before I just gave up.

___________________________________________
(2) "?xyz" near San Mateo, CA

"XYZ" is a bar in downtown San Francisco, approximately 20 miles away from San Mateo.

Brightkite returns these results:
http://brightkite.com/places/search?q...

OK, I get the ones that have "XYZ" in the title. But after the top few, the rest of the results don't even have "xyz" in the business name. Why are they appearing? Well, here's the answer.

Yahoo LocalSearch results for this search:
http://local.yahooapis.com/LocalSearc...

Look at the "US Auto Glass Center" result. Yahoo is returning that business in this result set because someone included the string "XYZ" in a review for that business. (See the [LastReviewIntro] XML node.)

Ugh. Brightkite users in the SF Bay Area are getting incorrect results for a bar in downtown SF ... because somebody on Yahoo! did a review of a glass maker and had "XYZ" in their review?

That's really, really bad.

Correct answer? Google.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=l&hl=en...

Result #1 is XYZ, the bar in downtown San Francisco. Nailed it.

I could go on with more examples, but the general gist is:

Brightkite team, we love you! But please investigate using some other API besides Yahoo Location Search for your location lookups.
Jay replied on June 13, 2008 22:41 to the idea "Can I comment on peoples pictures and posts?" in Brightkite:

Looks nice. I've been leaving comments for people, but they seemed to just sit there.

Hooray for making them more prominent- and I'd love to see that trend continue, e.g. by making them drop down from the original post without loading a new page.

Keep up the good work, guys. It's fun to see the progress.

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Lesley replied on June 13, 2008 22:32 to the idea "Can I comment on peoples pictures and posts?" in Brightkite:

There is now a comment tab where you can see all the comments people have left for your posts/checkins. :)

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lgbtech started following the question "Check-in and SAY ... in one message?" in Brightkite.
JoeSteel replied on June 04, 2008 10:27 to the idea "Can I comment on peoples pictures and posts?" in Brightkite:

Thanks Brady, that's a great addition. I do have a couple questions about the future plans for this feature.

The iPhone/Touch client will get this feature added in the future, correct? Right now I can't make or see replies with it.

Are there plans to be able to designate a reply specifically for only the original poster's eyes as well as the public reply feature?

Will replies show up in the location feeds and friend feeds? Right now I can only see a reply I've made to someone by going to their original post.

Thanks again for the hard work guys!
Joe

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