Brightkite to offer deals from Starbucks and custom badges

Brightkite has just announced on their blog that they are launching a brand partnership with Starbucks to offer deals for checked-in customers. You can now check-in to a local Starbucks using Brightkite during the Frappuccino happy hour (between 3pm and 5pm, from May7th to May 16th) and get half off on Starbucks Frappuccino. Once checked-in you can unlock your favorite Frappuccino badge to share on your profile.

This is great opportunity for Brightkite to get back into the location based social networking game. Foursquare is running away in the race who announced recently that they hit 40 million check-ins and 1 million users. Brightkite is trying to kickstart their strategy with this deal with Starbucks, they also announced a new unique feature “Group Texting” last month.

With so many companies trying to get in to the location based social networking, it is increasingly becoming a necessity for a unified check-in app and open location/places database. Hopefully there will be a solution soon.