The new wave of mobile phones brought with them many new software improvements, marketplaces and overall just a nicer sense of usability for the user. One hardware addition to these phones that many people are still to recognise the potential of is the Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) chip that can turn these phones into miniature navigation and positioning devices.

What I mean by the above statement is that phones have now become social platforms instead of just a way of Mr A speaking to Mr B. A case in point are two services that aim to allow you to check what your friends are up to whether you call them or not, these being Brightkite and the latest offering from Google; Latitude.

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On the 14th January, Google announced that they were to close some of the services that either weren’t making the company money or able to dedicate any more resources to. These services; Jaiku, Google Notebook, Dodgeball, Catalog Search and and Google Video, although not used by as many people as say Gmail, Calendar or gReader, still do have large followings.

What’s great about the internet is that there are always products and services that are able to take the place of your old favourites.

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People were talking about Brightkite on the internet a while before I decided to give it a whirl. Having read many reviews saying it was just a Twitter clone with Google Maps added, the invite laid dormant in my inbox for quite a few weeks (Brightkite was in a private beta, meaning you need an invite to use it’s service).

One day I decided to sign up and see what all the fuss was about, at first I don’t think I was glad I did. The service itself is very very similar to Twitter, the premise is to “Check In” where you are and share a note or a photo. Being honest, I couldn’t see it replacing Twitter for my social updates.

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