I want to talk about a site that in the last 6 months has gone from almost no users to about 34,000, and with good reason. DOPPLR is: A. a social network, kinda B. A twitter type ish thing sorta in that people see where you are(an update sorta) C. a planning tool D. a little bit of a lot of different things.

Now, to be more specific, because that was a ridiculous description, DOPPLR is a site, in the most simple description possible, to manage and track your travel (for you and yours). To begin with, you create a simple personal profile, than you enter in trips that you have planned in the near or far future. This site is really cool, and actually useful, for a number of reasons. When you view your upcoming trips , the view is available in list or map form (which I think is really cool!). You can easily let your friends know where you are going and when by sending them a message, or simply by having them as a contact (or in this site’s case they are called Fellow Travelers). You can choose who sees your trips, and whose trips you are updated on depending on how you choose to manage your ‘fellow travelers.’ The site keeps a ‘Journal‘ of your virtual life on DOPPLR, as well as documenting your past travel…sorta like a facebook newsfeed. Another really awesome thing is that DOPPLR will tell you if you know anybody who lives, is visiting, or is planning a trip in/at the place you are traveling to. But, as useful as that is, you have to have entered them into your DOPPLR account somewhere along the lines for that to actually work, and in all truthfulness, that probably won’t happen at this young stage of the site.

As far as design goes, I am really impressed with its simplicity. It doesn’t need to be more complex or more interactive than it already is. It works extremely well, and is an amazing digital tool for jet setters, which is a noun that is becoming more and more common these days for work or personal life.

If you read my blog and are on the move nonstop, I beg of you to at least give DOPPLR a chance…if not for your own management, than at least so you don’t have to twitter, facebook status update, myspace bulletin, text, or blog about where you are going, each time you go somewhere.

May DOPPLR be with you.

So, here is a post that some of you will find annoying because of its obviousness, but hopefully will enlighten those of you that haven’t discovered Twitter yet. Twitter http://twitter.com is not only another site you can get distracted by throughout the day, but it is an amazing resource for yourself. Perfect example: Just now I made a tweet to my followers that said “Please go vote for me on youtube” and I followed that with a direct link to my video. That one little sentence will probably get more people to that site than writing on facebook or myspace. What is Twitter exactly, you ask? Well, it’s a social networking site that only allows you to post 140 characters at a time. It’s a facebook status update of sorts, but is used for much more than just letting people know what you are up to. You can follow people, which means you receeve their updates on your homepage, but they have to choose to follow you back, they don’t necessarily have to. Some really interesting people I am following are CNN, Barack Obama, and someone named Cookbook who posts recipes. I can’t rave about Twitter enough. If you are really obsessed and into it, there are instant message type things called Snitter and Twitterific, so you don’t even have to go to the website. You can have it on your facebook page, and also get it directly sent to your cellphone. Just do it. I promise, unless you really aren’t into the internet (in which case you are screwed for the rest of your life ’cause that’s where the world is headed), you will love Twitter!

So, this is my last post for at least a few days, as I am headed up north to see the family. Keep checking back, there will be more posts before the holidays, but safe travels to anyone that is going somewhere in the next few days!

Another social network post, sorry for all your guys that are already bogged down with 15+ social networks to keep up with, most likely this one won’t add to the list for you. This social network is strictly for the fashionistas, label whores, can’t live without couture ladies (and gents of course!). Trendiki: http://www.trendiki.com is the social network for those that use their myspace, facebook, and blogs to rep. the fashion they love. But, on Trendiki profile names like Trendgeeky and FashionGuyd are respectable. Although it’s a pretty girly website, the homepage being black and pink kinda gives that feel to it right off the bat, there are guys involved. Trendiki combines a place to have a personal profile, but also is a veritable search engine for everything fashion; with fashion blogs, designer websites, style news, deals not to miss, and anything else fashion and trend related you can think of it might be better to use this for fashion questions rather than googling. If your life is a whirwind of fashion this and that’s, here’s your virtual living space. Go make your Trendiki impact you stylish creatures you!

Get geeky on Ziki…ok, I just had to do it, but for real let’s chat about it: http://www.ziki.com/ . I joined Ziki to see what it was all about, and truthfully I am still a bit confused. It seems to be to be a cross between Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/ (which you directly link to your Ziki account so therefor can’t be too similar), a very low cost social network, and a search engine that doesn’t really seem to work that well. But, that being said, maybe it just needs some refining, because I think they have a good idea here. The information you upload to your profile is searchable through all the major search engines (Google, Yahoo!, and MSN) so, you don’t have to worry about someone google-ing you and not knowing what is going to come up; you decide what comes up…for the most part. There is an area titled “content,” which to me looks like a blog, but could be used for anything including personal or professional self promotion. I guess what I need to conclude about Ziki is that it could be a great reference for future employers instead of looking at a possible new employees facebook or myspace, and Ziki could be a great tool for those wanting to get their information in the virtual mix of things. Maybe if more people Ziki’d themselves out we could really get something going on here.

Meet Fuser; your one-stop shop virtual mail room. I know all the other geek blogs covered this a while ago, but here is my introduction to this somewhat new site. When I first logged onto Fuser I was amazed at the simplicity. I am used to seeing colors and pictures and options for personalization thrown at me when I enter a new site. This site is simple. You merely put in your account information for your email, social networks, and any other site you may have that has an inbox attacked to it. Although I may end up not using it, Fuser is in the right headspace. Easy access to all your messages at once. If I had this account in college it would have made my 15 min. in between classes a whole lot more productive; rather than just checking my facebook I could have actually checked my email and myspace too. I suggest you take a look.