dopplr

I’ve been very selective about joining social/specialist networks until now. Then this week, due to this list of the Top 100 sites for the year ahead and an invitation, I ended up joining two. And have already been told off for not being active enough!

The first, Goodreads, allows you to share books and your ratings and reviews of which with friends. This morning I finally filled in some books (happy now, L?), and I’ve used it a fair amount (considering I’ve only been a member for a week) to see what everyone else is reading and what they thought about it. It also has the added benefit of the best-looking ‘currently reading’ flash-based widget I’ve found so far (despite it not being supported by WordPress!).

Dopplr is different in that it aims to hook you up with your friends during your random wanderings around the world. A recent such coincidence meant I had a great weekend in Boston, but also missed the French Troll (I’m not quite sure how) while attending the same large meeting in LA once. There’s also a Tripadvisor-like section for recommendations and questions, but I think Tripadvisor is still better by far.

The downside with both networks is that they require a certain amount of (manual) data entering to be of any use, though the process is easy in both. Dopplr will suffer more than Goodreads if this isn’t done, but at least for me the number of trips I make is a bit more limited.

I suppose only time will tell which of these sites will thrive and which will just crash and burn, but these are the two that I’ve decided to test. Jeans suggested Tripit and of course fun stuff happens when all these applications collide, like when Moo met Dopplr.

Have you found something cool I should know about?