Safety & Location-Based Social Networking Sites

I recently signed up for a BrightKite account. For those unfamiliar with BrightKite, it's a location-based social networking site that allows users to see where their friends are in real time, and users also have the opportunity to meet new people that are nearby. Users "check-in" to post their current location to BrightKite. This can be an exact location such as an address or name of a restaurant, store, etc., or the location can be more obscure such as just a city and state depending on how the user feels about privacy. There is also a toggle switch to flip back and forth between public and private modes. After checking-in, the user can post photos or notes associated with that location for others to see.

I use the BrightKite app on my iPhone, and the iPhone's location-based services makes checking-in a snap. I've only been using BrightKite for about a month now. Mostly, I keep my location set to my city and state unless I go out to eat or shopping and have something interesting to post. Today, I've been playing around in BrightKite to set placemarks and set privacy settings for each location to get more use out of the service. I start with the two places I'm at the most: home and work. Setting these two locations to private was a no brainer for me personally. Whatever others feel about giving out their home and work addresses online is their business, but I like to keep them private except to a very select group of trusted friends. Then, I turn my attention to other places I take my son to regularly like the park. I debate over whether the park should be public or private when I check-in there. I think, maybe there might be another cool mom there, BrightKite would alert us, and I might make a new friend. But then I feared, publicly giving out the location I was at with my son might lead to some creep stalking us. Risking my son's safety is something I'm not willing to do, so I set the park to private.

Location-based social networking is a very cool thing, but I think a certain amount of caution has to be used. I know BrightKite is just one of the many sites taking on this new frontier, and they have a fastly growing popularity. So, I'm curious who else fancies location-based social networking and who is opposed? What privacy settings do you feel most comfortable with? Any success stories meeting cool new people? Or just stalkers? Please share your stories.

UPDATE: Poll Results 11/18/08 - 11/25/08

Do you use any location-based social networking sites?
66% Yes
00% No
00% Thinking about it
34% Meh