I've noticed this too, the help and how-to on most sites is the weakest ever. Oh yeah, we can hide behind 'people don't RTFM', but still. - Eric Rice

Particularly with Brightkite, they force you to search for a location before you can check in. That threw me for a loop. Why can't I just say "This is where I am?" Why do I need to search for it first? - Mark Trapp

bright kite has a number of issues before it's ready for prime time. one that gets me every time is the performance of its sms interface. if you search for something in your area to do a check in, you may well be gone by the time brightkite comes back with the results of the query. FAIL. - sean808080 from twhirl

@Mark, I beleive the search returns results that can be placed on maps vs. you typing whatever you want and they trying to figure out where you are. - Tsega Dinka

Tsega, sure, but why not let me say "This is where i am" and do what Google Maps does: if I type something it doesn't understand, it says "Did you mean this?" Right now, the only cue of where you're supposed to check in is a microscopic question mark next to "You have not checked in" that tells me I have to do a search first. - Mark Trapp

Um..yeah I had exactly the same reaction. I couldn't figure out how to set my location. I still find it clunky. When I was trying to do the company lookup the first time I fought with it for 30 minutes and finally gave up and manually put in the information. I now know how to but...um I use this kind of stuff regularly. If I can't figure it out there is something wrong. - Goldie Katsu

Well, she's one step ahead of me... I haven't signed up. :) - l0ckergn0me

Thats the reason I have not seen that site after I signed up!! - Jigar Mehta from bTT

<yawn> yeah I feel her on this one </yawn> - Mark Forman

I think the most "beta" part of beta releases is the UI/how to portion.Most techies don't know how to talkie. - Mark Forman

was just thinking of how much of a bkite noob i am. they have complex sms codecs to learn. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

I disagree about holding hands when services are still in beta and invite only. I would expect a released version of a service to do better. Getting an invite and being a early adopter comes with some strings - broken software and no manuals are usually at the head of the list. - Doug Brooks

None of this stuff is prime time until it can be properly sold to the masses with a DUH. Also, Brightkite (which I do actually like) isn't the only one here, we could probably list the services that run on geek assumptions. - Eric Rice

I'm sure other people have similar rules, but my rule is the 10/10 rule: the user must grasp how to begin using your software within 10 seconds, and must be able to use it without supervision or help after 10 minutes. Granted, advanced things might take more time, but they should have a working knowledge of how to do day-to-day things in 10 minutes. Any more time, and it's back to the usability drawing board. - Mark Trapp

@mark t: i like that. beta or not, user friendliness should be in the top five of the list. - edythe

10/10 rule ftw! - Mark Forman

Yeah, I really do like bright kite, the idea an implementation is great once you get past the how do I get info in here? I spent more than 10 seconds looking for a check-in button. - Goldie Katsu

Eric - your wife is a savvy Web 2.0 app user. Start-ups that fail to clearly guide the user with a nice, simple straight-forward walk thru on the 1st login to introduce them to their app are missing a huge opportunity to demonstrate the key features of their product. If the user doesn't see these features they will NOT see the *value* in the application and the will not use it. Attrition rates are much higher for apps where there is no up-front training on the 1st login. - Susan Beebe

Usability testing is the solution. Sit some people down in front of the screen, ask them to perform a task. Sit back and watch. Its amazing how quickly you find out that what you thought was obvious, is completely missed by everyone. Doing a Beta release in and of itself will not solve UI issues. - Kevin Shannon

Does anyone have a spare invite to BrightKite available? - Joe Dawson

Joe, email me at mark@itafroma.com and I'll hook you up. - Mark Trapp

even after you try and use it, I find it still fails - Jonathan Greene from twhirl

@Mark cheers mate! - Joe Dawson

Brightkite.left me too wondering why I was wasting my time - Noah David Simon

I like BK, but when you are in the exact same location for a few days, it's kinda retarded, conceptually. - Eric Rice

Eric, yeah: I've been wanting to use it in earnest for the past few days, but... I haven't gone anywhere. - Mark Trapp

It's as much as "why should I use it" as "how do I use it." - Leo Laporte

BrightKite was alittle hard to figure out at first, but once you get the hang of it - it's a pretty powerful social feature. I don't really have any friends on BrightKite but using it hand-in-hand with Twitter is great. - Aaron Myers

it's only interesting when you check in away from home/work. it would be especially interesting to see places within a given geographic radius where the most people have checked in. geographic serendipity. also, hopefully, they'll get this working with gps - rob zand

So far, I like it. It's a little tricky to figure out at first, especially posting from the web site using my blackberry, but I think I've got it. The problem is, I haven't gone anywhere since I signed up. :) I'm interviewing for a new job with about 50% travel, and I'm thinking it'll be a lot more useful then. - ha3rvey (free hugs!)

signed up for it, used it a couple times, but too much of a hassle to keep telling it where i am. my friends can txt me or twitter me for "where i am" info. - Chris Harris

BK is quite boring when I'm just going from home to work and so forth, but when I go places work or vacation it's kind of cool. I do have issue with the foreign place names being in the local language, such as when I'm in China, I get all china symbols. Being that I'm not a manual reader, it took some time to figure it out, but I got it going after a bit. - clarke thomas

i've been loving brightkite, however it makes me realise that i should be getting out more. i also stopped checking in when at home, as i don't think that counts as interest to the public. - Kevin Buckstiegel from twhirl

I used it a few times but when I didn't get the results I thought I'd get by doing things I gave up on it. I don't want to have to remember different commands to make it do what I think it'll do without them. - Bob