Infotropism Kirrily Robert’s blog

Dopplr vs TripIt: web 2.0 travel sites compared

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I’ve been using Dopplr for a while now, and recently got an invitation code for TripIt. Both are web 2.0 social networking websites for travellers, and a lot of people have been talking about them in relation to each other, so I thought I’d post a quick review of both of them.

Dopplr

Dopplr is mostly set up as a social networking site for frequent travellers. You connect with your friends, enter your trips, and it will say “Hey, Chris is going to be there at that time, too!” Recently, Schwern’s trip to San Francisco was prompted by seeing, via Dopplr, that a bunch of his friends were going to be in town.

The downside to Dopplr, in my opinion, is that it only connects you with people you already know. I’d love to be able to say “I have no sense of privacy; open my trip schedule up to the world!” and then see if any strangers get in touch and say “Hey, you look cool, want to meet for lunch/sex/a job interview?”

I’ve also had a few small problems with Dopplr’s list of locations. The location field in their dropdown has a Google Suggest style interface, which is helpful, except that the list is incomplete. On various occasions I’ve been unable to enter Port Vila (capital of Vanuatu) or Brisbane, Australia (a state capital) and had to choose small US towns with similar names and add a note to the effect. However, Dopplr’s gazetteer has been improving by leaps and bounds and it’s now getting pretty good at recognising places outside of the US. I’d still like to see a free text location, though.

TripIt

TripIt’s main purpose is organising your own travel. It allows you to record details of flights, hotels, car rentals, and anything else you might want to track. As a non-driver and inveterate couch-surfer, I get the feeling it’s going to be making some assumptions about modes of travel that may not map to how I actually get around. On closer examination, I find that I’m not able to enter a train or car trip, either; only airline flights are supported. Heaven help me if I try to tell it I’m planning to sail from Brisbane to Sydney in a friend’s yacht in December.

My other main peeve with TripIt — based on all of about 30 minutes’ experience, admittedly — is its lack of internationalisation. Like Dopplr, it’s missing many locations (including Port Vila), but to add insult to injury, it requires me to enter dates in US format (Dopplr has a calendar widget instead), gives me weather forecasts in Fahrenheit only, and tries to get me to enter a zipcode for my own profile and for anywhere I stay — including hotels outside the US.

These annoyances are sufficient that I probably won’t be using TripIt, and will instead rely on my existing system of Google Mail and Calendar to plan my travel.

Try them out

Both sites are still in closed beta. Comment here if you’d like an invitation. I’ve got 5 of each available.

I’d love an invite for TripIt. Sounds like just what I’ve been looking for.

Except for the flaws, as you point out, but I’d still like to have a squiz g

smuffster: sent!

Hey!

I’d like to try Dopplr, if you don’t mind. The “only to friends” bit is annoying, at times, but at others I’d prefer that privacy, I reckon…

PS Good looking out with the new blogs! Planning a migration to MT myself…

Asim, good to see you here! Invitation has been sent.

Dopplr’s date widget, on the other hand, starts each week on monday. I can’t tell you how many trips I’ve mis-entered by a day (for start or end) because of that stupid widget.

When I signed up for the TripIt private beta the welcome message included this note:

“We’re trying to keep our private beta private, so we ask that you not blog us, publish on us, etc. until we’ve had a chance to build out our feature set. We appreciate your understanding.”

Is that no longer the case?

Nik: Not that I can see. It’s neither in the User Agreement on their site, nor in any of the email they sent me.

If you really want to share your trips with the world you can. In this posting on the Dopplr blog I explain how you can create an iCal version of your Dopplr trips, and how you can import that into your Google calendar.

In the post I urge people not to make that calendar public. But you’re free to ignore that advice and show the world your trips.

Dan: Ooh, thanks, that makes sense. But I’d still love it to be doable inside Dopplr so people could see something like, “You’re going to be in Melbourne, Australia. 10 of your friends will be there at that time, along with 50 friends-of-friends with public trip calendars and 1000 complete strangers ditto.” And then you could click on a FOAF and see “This person is connected to you through Mary.” And then I’d think, ooh, any friend of Mary’s is probably an interesting person, first I’ll googlestalk them a bit, then I’ll drop them an email and invite them to meet for coffee.

We’re pretty adamant about keeping the trips viewable only to people who’ve been explictly invited to see them. (In your case that may be everyone.)

By the way, you can expand your circle of travellers in a limited FOAF-like way. There’s a tab in the Manage Connections page (link at top right of Dopplr page) that lets you see some new travelers invited by people who can see your trips (and vice versa). You can share your trips with them, though again they’ll have to reciprocate if they’re interested in showing you their own trips.

Do you have any more invites for TripIt? I’d like to have one if it is still available.

Any invites left for TripIt? Traveling a lot for interviews, and it sounds perfect for organizing all those different flights and hotel reservations. Thanks!

Will: Sent!

Shibu: Looks like you got one from somewhere else already; sorry I wasn’t quicker.

Hey,
u have something left for Dopplr?

Thx!

Jakub: Only if you ask using standard spelling and punctuation.

Ok.

Do you have some invitation left for Dopplr? If so, I would be very happy.

Thank you.

Jakub: Sent!

I would like a invitation to Tripit if you still have any available.

Thanks,
Paul

Paul: sent!

Do you still have a Dopplr code remaining? Sounds good and we’re about to do a nutty tour across the US…

Rosanne: sent!

any dopplr invites yet? would love one.. thx! jennifer

Nice balanced review of both sites. Thanks

Do you have any of the Dopplr codes left? I am using Tripit, already, but I love the ability to get all my friends plans for the larger conventions so we can coordinate activities.

You don’t need an invitation to join Dopplr — just sign up:

http://www.dopplr.com/join