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How are YOU going to show off your traveling?

Written on 17th September 2008 10 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

Dopplr got a rather spectacular injection of money recently – adding names like Saul Klein to their financial backers. It meant a new episode in an online travel battle, where Dopplr shows power play – they have the celebrities behind them – and Tripit tries to seduce you with innovative travel-adding technologies.

But in the end, it all comes down to the viral effect of their services. If your friends are on one travel site, you aren’t likely to register on the other. So badges are vital. Dopplr already offered a public profile and widgets for a while, and now Tripit has added a blog widget to their arsenal as well.

The travel sites choose a completely different style. Ok, they both have the impressive statistics thing going on (as long as you travel a lot, of course), but where Dopplr seems to choose for cool maps and a visually appealing app, Tripit goes for simplicity and a RSS feed:

How are YOU going to show off your traveling?

So.., after reading this post, have you decided how to show of your traveling?

10 Comments »

About the author: Ernst-Jan is blogger and co-organizer of BLOG08, who previously worked in New York to cover news at the United Nations. Next to writing, he's also a singer in the band Christina Five. Follow him on Twitter or read his personal blog Dutchproblogger.com .

10 comments/trackbacks to “How are YOU going to show off your traveling?”

Nov 21, 2008: InTown: Dopplr for Facebook
[...] as few people use the service. None of my friends have it installed yet so I can only use it to brag. Let’s see whether the app gets [...]

By Scott Jones on Sep 17, 2008

I’ll Rummble it.

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By Drivingsouth on Sep 17, 2008

I’m for Dopplr, even if i keep misspelling it and google is not good finding it as a close match to my misspelled attempts.

Do you guys see an dopplr as a “big feature” for a social-network like LinkedIn. Apparently one of the investor celebrities invested in LinkedIn as well: every time i use dopplr i think about it. Both target groups are the same to a great extent.

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By Ernst-Jan Pfauth on September 18th, 2008:
Yeah, you’re absolutely right. I think quite a few of the professionals registered on LinkedIN travel a lot. Maybe we’ll see an acquisition of a travel site someday soon.

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By Bob Boynton on Sep 18, 2008

I thought we were going to get over this:

“If your friends are on one travel site, you aren’t likely to register on the other.”

Why don’t we tell Plaxo [or something like that] to add travel sites to their list? Why don’t we tell Dopplr and Tripit that we will use them when they make it easy for Plaxo [or whatever] to get access to my travel plans and the travel plans of my friends?

I think we ought to be pushing in the direction of integration around my needs rather than around the advantage/needs of proprietary businesses.

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By Ernst-Jan Pfauth on September 18th, 2008:
It feels stupid to fill in your travel plans on both sites and find your friends on both sites, so yes, I agree with you. But so far, it’s more about building new sites (see comments below), rather than focusing on integration

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By Andrew J Scott on Sep 18, 2008

We’ll be adding a blog widget VERY shortly. We’ll also be adding support for other sites, and you can already connect to FACEBOOK to publish your trips, travels and Rummbles. It updates your Twitter, FB and Bebo status and feed with your Rummbles and you location, including your Twitter location in your Twitter profile.

All automatically, all by doing it once on the Rummble site, or sending an SMS to Rummble (free).

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By Mathijs on Sep 18, 2008

Hi Ernst-Jan,

Nice article

I like the new Dutch startup http://www.zimzer.com (still in private beta). As I’m one of the beta testers I was fortunate to try it out already:
http://www.zimzer.com/mathijs

There is also a Dutch version available at:
http://www.vakantiegangers.nl (also same private beta).

I’ve switched from Dopplr. I like the interface and design of Zimzer.com more.

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By Ernst-Jan Pfauth on September 18th, 2008:
but what about your contacts? The fun of Dopplr is that you can see how your travel coincidence with those of your contacts. They are not Zimzer.com now, right?

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By Mathijs on September 18th, 2008:
That is right, but I’ve never experience that someone I knew (or could be interesting to meet) went to the same place at the same time. So for me that piece of functionality is not so relevant.

You are also right that this startup is another one. And is not focussed on integration.

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