Brightkite Offers API for Beta Testing

Brightkite has just announced that they are ready to start working with developers willing to beta test their now available API. Judging by ReadWriteWeb's coverage of Brightkite, they planned to have the API available in May but apparently it took them longer. The API is still not completely open for now, the interested developers will need to request access to the API but given the growing popularity of the location-based mobile social networking that Brightkite offers, I don't think they'll have to wait for long for the first applications to arrive.

For those of you who have missed the Brightkite buzz, I'll remind you that basically Brightkite allows you to broadcast your location information (including via Twitter) so that every single friend of yours knows exactly where you are (depending on the level of privacy you choose). To do this you only need a cell phone with a supported carrier and an account with Brightkite. And once you happen to be near some of your friends also on the service, it will alert you of that fact via SMS (or you can track everything via their web interface as well).

So what kind of mashups should we now expect from the developers jumping on the API bandwagon? Even on the announcement day they already have one integration available - it is offered by lifestreaming service Socialthing!. But what I expect to see in the very near future is multiple event planning services integrating Brightkite so that people that are planning to attend this or that event could know in advance who they could expect to see in the crowd and shake hands with. It will also be interesting to see some travel planning applications integrating Brightkite so that when a Brightkite user plans a trip to certain destination, he or she could connect with other users that will be at this particular place at the same time and maybe even plan some joint activities.

These are just my guesses and I invite you to share your ideas in the comments - I'm sure that some savvy developers will implement your ideas in the very near future now that they have access to Brightkite API.