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"Brightkite, the company that pioneered the place checkin, is checking out of the competition. The Limbo-owned company pivoted to group texting earlier this year and has just announced that it will drop its checkins, posts and stream features in all applications moving forward.\nThe news comes as Brightkite readies to release a checkin-free version of its Android application that swaps out the old place streams for group texting altogether. Later this month, these features will evaporate from the other applications as well. Location will still remain a part of the apps as users can share their location with each text.\nBrightkite users have until December 31 to pack up their data. The service is letting users retrieve 1,000 of their most recent stream items in RSS form.\nWhile notable because it's the company that birthed the \"checkin,\" this news is no surprise as Brightkite has made its group texting intentions known for some time now. Interestingly enough, it is leaving behind the no longer blue ocean of checkin services for a market that's even more competitive, especially with GroupMe and Fast Society stealing press headlines in recent months. \nOriginal founders Martin May and Brady Becker have long since abandoned their location-sharing machinations to pursue a new project: stealth startup Forkly. Forkly is another location play, but this one is based around food and restaurant discovery. \"We\u2019re building Forkly to make it ridiculously easy to match your taste buds with the food and restaurants around you,\" May revealed in November.\nImage courtesy of Flickr, Jason L. Parks"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2010/12/10/brightkite-group-text/>