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I'd like the ability to drag'n'drop my friends into more convenient locations :)
I agree that Dopplr's simplicity is a strength at the moment. I was actually also reading your post about Twitter usage (with a list of implied improvements they could make), and wondered whether all the features you could add to a service like this are going to improve it or not.
What's missing? Hmm. They already state / imply that they will add some contact management features, and I think that will help. I also mentioned to mattb that integration with e.g. Upcoming makes a lot of sense... if that can happen without Yahoo! acquiring the hell out of them :-)
Basically I'm relatively satisfied. I've taken to adding a note to any invites I send that the person I've invited needs to add me in order for me to see their trips - it's a little counter-intuitive coming from other social networks, but a good way of managing access.
Personally I would just like an invite to get started :-)
Geoff: I hear you. Invites are hard to come by. They hand us a couple every now and again (I've had four in total for now).
I think the main problem I'm running into right now is that friends relationships really have to be bi-directional. Being able to one-way add someone is great until they don't add you back - and then you're stuck not being able to see them but, in the current beta, you can't retract the invitation.
So either a lot of people don't like me (you included, Steph!), or it's not obvious enough that people have to add you back - even those you invite.
Otherwise, I love the service.
Actually, just realized what the problem is while talking to Suw: Everyone's in the Twitter mindset.
When someone adds you as a friend on Twitter (or Flickr, or del.icio.us), it generally means "I am interested in reading your information and the like".
When someone adds you as a friend on Dopplr, it's the exact reverse. It means "I am publishing my information to you, if you'd like to see it."
It's hard to reverse polarities when thinking about social networks.
Dan: you're right, adding on Dopplr and adding on Twitter is the reverse. The Dopplr way makes sense, because it puts privacy first.
I hadn't realised you had added me and I hadn't! Just added you back. Being able to see a list of "people who have added me" would be useful.
Geoff: enjoy the invite ;-)
So Luis IM'd me to ask for an invite on behalf of Euan Semple which was destined for Geoff. There's social networking for you!
It looks like a very interesting social network. Would like to start if somebody can send me an invitation.
Steph - some great suggestions here. Fuzziness, privacy and politeness are things we thinking very hard about as we progress the design of the service. Glad you think we've got the adding process the right way round, at least to start off with - we thought long and hard about that.
It's clear to me at least that people do impose their mental models from other services onto new ones they discover - nothing earth-shattering about that, but we should perhaps be clearer about the model in order to make that subtle shift.
Glad you're enjoying it and very reassured to hear you approve to our somewhat puritanical approach to adding new features!!!
Cheers
/Matt
Related reading: http://blog.dopplr.com/index.php/2007/06/02/tha...>
I'm trying to work out the difference between Dopplr and Plazes - other than that the latter is open to all at the moment and Dopplr is by invitation only. Unfortunately, I can't test drive Dopplr for myself yet as I don't have an invitation. Can anyone flag any differences between the two?
They're completely different propositions. Dopplr's primarily about the future: about seeing who among your friends will be where, when. Its simplicity and focus are what make it valuable to me.
Hello Stephanie, I'm late to this thread, but read about it on scoble's blog. . . I would like to get an invite to try this out, too. If you or anyone that you know has one to spare -- please let me know at howard.liptzin [at] gmail dot com, thanks.
While on the subject, I share the view that introducing too much complexity in the form of features, preferences or options tends to destroy the beauty (and I use that term in the full sense of its meaning) of many highly-focused applications. It is very understandable why and how this happens, but that does not make the phenomenon anymore palatable to the end user.
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