The Dopplr Effect: Have Social Media, Will Travel
24. Oct, 2008 
16 Comments
With everyone and their brother on Twitter (since I’ve started, there are 1000 people following me), you might wonder: What’s the point? Sure it’s nice to hear about what everyone is doing each day and during the debates I hit refresh constantly to see how the twitterverse was reacting in real time. Getting noticed by editors is even better. But it wasn’t until someone pointed me to dopplr.com that I suddenly could see the future of social media– applications that let you stay in touch and provided a great service.
Dopplr lets you keep track of all your travel plans. It’s simple, uncluttered and easy to use. It’s a “social media” site because it allows you to add fellow travelers much like you would on Facebook or Twitter (In fact you can import your contacts from email, facebook, twitter and so on). But it’s the features on Dopplr that make it stand out:
1. It’s private. You only see tips and travel plans from the people you want to see. Just like Facebook, your profile is private unless the person adds you. And unlike other travel sites (VirtutalTourist.com or Couchsurfing.com) you don’t have to wade through the profiles of dozens of strangers. For me, this is perfect. I can add my favorite travel bloggers and the privacy keeps the signal to noise ratio way down–something a lot of social media websites could benefit from.
2. It’s practical. If you’re planning a RTW trip, wouldn’t it be nice to get tips from people you know (either online or off) rather than trying to guess which tripadvisor reviews are spammy hotel PR people and which are the real deal. It also encourages coincidences– you can see who else is going to be there and who already lives there.
3. It’s connected. You can import contacts from Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Yahoo and so on. You don’t have to spend hours trying to remember who you know– one click and it grabs that info for you. It also has functionality that allows you to post travel plans from twitter, email or text messages.
4. It’s bloggable. You can see on the right hand sidebar, that I’ve added a widget with all my travel dates. This pulls from Dopplr automatically, so as I keep Dopplr up to date, my website stays in synch. It also makes cool google maps that show your entire trip on a world map.
5. It’s Green. The neatest thing (and scariest) is that they can show your carbon footprint for your travels. Ever wonder how much impact your RTW has on the environment? They do the math and give you a sum by what you’ve done and what you’re planning to do.
6. It’s new(ish). It came out last year as Beta, but they still seem to be adding new features all the time. From reading their blog, it sounds like they are going into a round of financing, so I have no doubt they’ll be around for a while. I like the idea of being an early adopter: before they figure out how to drive me crazy with Facebook-esque layout changes or granting users the ability to embed annoying music files in their profiles (like myspace).
Dopplr isn’t perfect. Already I can see some features I’d like added or improved. The trip planner can be a little glitchy (it seems to think San Jose, Costa Rica is actually San Jose, CA– which I might add, it is definitely not). Also, not alot of people are using it. I imported everyone I could, and only a dozen or so folks I know have profiles set up. The main problem with any social media application? People have to use it. Otherwise it’s not so social, but just plain media. And we already have a lot of those.
So go, sign up, fill out your travel plans and add me (I’ll add you back too!). I want to see where everyone is planning on going– and who knows, maybe we’ll even end up running into each other on some beach in Costa Rica. If I do, I’ll definitely buy you a drink. It’s the social thing to do.
Author’s Note: I really should be charging for such nice reviews, but apparently I still like giving the love away for free. Dopplr hasn’t paid me a cent to write this review, but as always, nice bottles of wine are always appreciated.
Thanks, I’ll check this out!
[F]oxymorons last blog post..The Fall Of Childhood
Hi There,
We just signed up Jet Set life today! We’ll let all of the New Jet Set know about it:)
Best,
Rob
Hi Christine,
I’ve been thinking about signing up for a while, e (It’s a UK company which is less common for this kind of app), but your post inspired me to take the plunge.
It will obviously be more exciting for me to use when I do more travel and less work…
Cheers,
Chris
Chris @ LifestyleProjects last blog post..Anti-Procrastination
You’re review makes it sound quite useful. I find I’m not much of a ‘social media’ person – I still haven’t found a personal use for Twitter, but I’m going to check this out! Thanks.
Gillians last blog post..South America Itinerary
Man… something else to check out.
Also, I love Costa Rica. One of the best places on Earth. Dominical is where I eloped. I want to go back so badly.
MikeCs last blog post..Sky Dive
I just joined and I’ll be adding you!
Christine-
Great post! I evaluated and reviewed Dopplr when it was still in beta and I came to the conclusion that while it sounded cool, it wasn’t a service I was interested in using. The reason? Its only function at the time was the ability to track who was where. And I thought: Well, I already know where people I’d like to see are.
From your review, I can see that Dopplr has evolved considerably and I’ll definitely check in on the site again. Not sold on opening yet another account though!
Yay! Just checked my profile and a bunch of people added me… it’s pretty cool to see where everyone is… I’ll have to post the map!
Am I the only one that gets disheartened by yet *another* place to set up a profile and gather friends and keep track of information? Maybe I’m just getting old.
I recently deleted a bunch of accounts on social media sites with awful signal-to-noise ratio that were nothing but high-tech timewasters. But new ones just keep popping up! I can’t keep up!
(OK, I do sound about a hundred years old… really I’m not, just overwhelmed by trying to figure out how best to use my social networking time & resources.)
Sonias last blog post..Mid-week culcha
I was actually looking for something exactly like this!! I’ll also be adding a link to it on my blog but for now here are my travels on Dopplr. I added you – thanks for sharing the interesting site
Benny Lewiss last blog post..How to take as much as you like in your hand luggage
Dopplr looks cool, but I have will have to check it out later when I have more time.
Don’t give up on Twitter yet as it and SU are the most powerful social media tools in my book, especially for travelers.
You have to give Twitter a little time to figure it out. You did the typical newbie thing when you recently joined, followed a ton of people who auto follow you to get your numbers up, then let go of the ones who do not follow.
That gives you lots of peeps, but not much conversation and connection, which is the whole benefit of Twitter. I have found Twitter to be an absolutely amazing connector and I have met very powerful and dynamic people that I never would have known without it, gotten so much help, jobs, interviews and more.
All of that in a few seconds a day as we travel the world as a family! ( Some periods I am unplugged, but twitter is also a great source for my readers to know where we are in real time and twit pics let them have a peek at the pictures and adventures coming up!)
I joined Dopplr several months ago, but didn’t start using it until today and put up a small badge on my blog.
Just had a look at your badge, which is far longer than mine. Will be interesting to read your blog posts from all these destinations!
Hey, this is a great post about Dopplr. Very informative–I’ve heard about them before, but never wanted to give them a run on it until I read your post! Thanks!
I’m planning on joining it now. Nice site.
Well written, comprehensive…great post.