If you like using Twitter, Dopplr, or EnTrip, then you’d fall in love with Laatie.

In short, Laatie is simply better!

The Laatie messaging platform combines real-time visual geo-search engine and location-based services with social wiki tools to let you connect and share your itty-bitty travel activities, plans, and destinations with any selected users, anywhere.

Web 2.0 is reinventing how we communicate; how we think; how we do business and politics; how we travel, work, eat, shop, play.  And, since I’ve never been one to shy away from a bandwagon, I’ve gladly jumped aboard.

Blog?  Check.  Facebook? Check.  Twitter?  Check.  Linked In?  Check.  Last.fm?  Check.

I also recently registered with Dopplr, which is billed as a, “service for smart international travellers.”  Why add that to my already-burgeoning suite of social networks?  Why not!  I travel internationally and didn’t fall off the turnip truck recently, so I figured it couldn’t hurt.  Besides, I think the name is quite clever.

My next foray: Urbanspoon.

My friend Rachelle, whom I’ve mentioned previously, blogs about food and through Urbanspoon has the top-rated food blog in Ottawa.  While I doubt I will be able to achieve the same notoriety, I will certainly look to her for guidance and inspiration as I set off in search of new haunts in Winnipeg to replace the restaurants and bars I will be leaving behind when I bid farewell to Ottawa.

Stay tuned.

Quando parliamo di siti di viaggi, ci riferiamo ai racconti di viaggi passati, ai ricordi, alle foto delle vacanze. Ma proviamo per una volta a far eun balzo in avanti e a condividere il viaggio che stiamo pianificando, quello che vorremmo fare, la vacanza dei nostri sogni. Magari c’è qualcuno che ci può dare qualche dritta per organizzarci al meglio. E qui, tiriamo in ballo Dopplr, social network dei viaggiatori futuri, quelli che ci raccontano non solo com’è andata nelle vacanze passate, ma ci mettono a parte dei loro piani per il futuro.

Il massimo per un viaggiatore è condividere i propri spostamenti con gli amici. Il massimo per un’applicazione 2.0 è il mash-up con quante più piattaforme possibili.

Dopplr mette insieme tutto questo: Google Map, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, note, commenti, dialogo con gli altri utenti.

Dopplr dialoga con Flickr: caricate le vostre foto sul noto sito di photo-sharing, et voilà…Dopplr le riconosce al volo e le posiziona sulla Google Map. Naturalmente, c’è di mezzo anche l’immancabile Facebook, per il quale Dopplr – acquistato pochi giorni fa da Nokia - ha sviluppato l’applicazione Where Next? per condividere i tuoi viaggi passati e futuri con i tuoi amici su FB.

E poi, Dopplr ti avvisa se qualche tuo amico si trova in vacanza o per lavoro nello stesso luogo in cui sei tu. Molto comodo per chi ha amicizie internazionali

Naturalmente, l’utilizzo delle mappe interattive è senza dubbio il punto di forza del sito. La possibilità di georeferenziare ogni contenuto relativo al nostro viaggio rende la visualizzazione e la condivisione molto più semplice e immediata.

La forte propensione al viaggio è un elemento che accomuna gli utenti di Dopplr.  E l’aspetto social è sicuramente garantito dalle modalità che il sito ha pensato per i nuovi utenti: una volta inserito il vostro plan di un viaggio che avete fatto in passato, ecco che Dopplr vi chiede di rispondere a qualche curiosità, del tipo dove si può andare a mangiare spendendo poco, o cosa vale la pena visitare, etc. E le vostre risposte si mescolano a quelle degli altri utenti, scoprendo magari interessi comuni e passione per gli stessi luoghi.

Dopplr says it has been acquired by Nokia: The acquisition does not change the current Dopplr service; http://j.mp/fSCup

Mobile cloud computing är en term som hörs allt oftare. Är det dags att utförda ännu en hypevarning? Eder ödmjuke bloggare tror inte det. Det är apparna och alla dessa appstores som står för hypen. Eller för att vara mer exakt, en nisch kapar åt sig all mindshare just nu. Trots Android vet vi redan att Google tror på mobila webbtjänster över mobila applikationer. Ett exempel på det finns här.

Det finns 4 miljarder mobiltelefonabonnemang i världen. En väldigt liten del av dessa utgörs av smartphones. Den stora massan har och kommer för lång tid framöver ha enklare telefoner. Men dessa är alla idag kapabla som tunna klienter för mobila webbtjänster. Med HTML5 kommer även dålig täckning och låg bandbredd i mobilnätverken kompenseras med cachning i telefonen. Processorkraft och datalagring kan lämpas över på serversidan. I mobilens tunna klient sköts input och output av det som sker på serversidan.

Det är också lättare att nå mobila webbtjänster än appar, som ofta finns i vissa specifika kanaler. Det räcker med tillgång till mobilt internet med en browser i mobiltelefonen för att nå en mobil webbtjänst. Sedan har vi produktionssidan. Det finns långt fler kunniga utvecklare för webtjänster än vad det finns experter på mobilapplikationer. Gränssnittsexpertis för mobilen krävs, men för de tunga tjänsterna och allt det jobbet, finns det gott om genier som kan skapa.

Det finns mer att läsa om detta på ReadWriteWeb som hade en bra artikel som summerar en studie av ABI Research på ämnet. Det kommer att bli spännande 24 månader. Kommer vi se företag som Netbiscuits, konkurrera med Amazon Web Services? Kommer Nokia, som för stunden verkar hopplöst vilse i den mobila världen (varför köpte de Dopplr?!), att dominera igen genom en plattform för mobila webbtjänster? Allt jag vet säkert är att det blir ett race och resa som kommer att bli kul att följa. Ekonomi och volym finns i mobila webbtjänster snarare än i alla dessa appar. Det är i mobila webbtjänster de smarta pengarna kommer att hamna när appstore-hypen har lagt sig. Kom ihåg att du läste det här först!

Финская компания Nokia приобрела интернет-сервис Dopplr – социальную сеть, специально созданную для заядлых путешественников. Сумма сделки составляет 10−15 млн евро (примерно 15−22 млн долларов).

Скорее всего, разработки создателей Dopplr найдут свое применение уже в следующем поколении новых разработок Nokia, отмечается в сообщении. Так представленный недавно Linux-смартфон Nokia N900 со встроенным GPS-приемником смог бы стать неплохим дорожным компаньоном для любителей путешествий.

Зарегистрированные в сети Dopplr пользователи могут не только отслеживать и сохранять маршруты своего передвижения на карте, но и встречаться с другими любителями дорожных приключений, находящимися поблизости.

Сделку между Nokia и Dopplr нельзя назвать совершенно неожиданной, так как до этого у компаний были достаточно тесные отношения. Так, основатель и исполнительный директор Dopplr Марко Ахтисаари в прошлом занимал пост директора по дизайну в финской корпорации.

Многие специалисты положительно отзываются об этой сделке: по их мнению, она будет полезна для обеих сторон. Nokia довольно давно периодически скупала стартапы – впрочем, предыдущие приобретения стоили финскому производителю мобильных телефонов на порядки дешевле.

Источник: newsru.com

http://www.brandrepublic.com/BrandRepublicNews/News/940739/Nokia-buys-social-media-website-Dopplr/?DCMP=EMC-DailyNewsBulletin

Nokia has reportedly continued its acquisition spree in social media with the purchase of Dopplr, the London-based site that allows people to share personal and business travel plans privately.

British-based social travel website Dopplr is being bought by mobile phone titan Nokia for around €15m (£13.5m), according to reports.

The boutique travel company, which is based in London and Helsinki, launched in 2007 as a way for frequent travellers to keep track of their movements. After receiving around €1.5m in funding from The Accelerator Group and a number of private investors, the company expanded into travel tips and forged a series of partnerships with high-end brands such as Mr & Mrs Smith and Monocle.

Porra, a Nokia mandou bem demais.

Do The Guardian

[qi:gigaom_icon_geolocation] At our Mobilize 09 conference, someone joked that Nokia was the Yahoo (s YHOO) of the mobile world. I’m sure he meant that Nokia was bereft of direction and purpose. You can also extend that argument to Nokia’s acquisition strategy. The company has been buying up tiny companies, hoping to get a bit of web services magic. Unfortunately, all these acquisitions are like Band-aids applied on a cut carotid artery — they wouldn’t do much good unless Nokia has a platform that’s developed specifically for the mobile Internet.

That’s why I think that Dopplr, a London-based startup that marries location services with the social graph, is committing hara-kiri. The company is rumored to have been acquired by Nokia (s NOK) for between $15 million and $22 million. I’m happy for the founders and backers of Dopplr, after all it is a nice financial outcome for a service that hasn’t grown beyond a base of passionate users. It’s only a matter of time before Nokia mucks up this acquisition, however, much like it has in the past.

I was busy enough in June that I didn’t take time to blog about an interesting social-media experience. But when a similar thing happened this week, I decided it was time to take note.

I can’t recall how I first learned about TripIt, though it probably was from Mark Briggs, who was my first TripIt contact. I had already joined Dopplr, a travel-oriented social tool co-founded by my friend Dan Gillmor (who was a reporter assigned to me at the Kansas City Times before he became a new-media star). I travel a lot, so I figured I would try them both out and see which one I liked better.

Frankly, I was too busy to really dig into either. But I tried to plug my travel itineraries into both of them. I forgot to add a few trips and wasn’t finding much use from them, though I could see intriguing possibilities. I added the LinkedIn application for TripIt (Dopplr doesn’t have an application, at least not one listed on LinkedIn’s applications page).

Out of the blue in June, I received an email from a friend in Washington, Deborah Gump, who noticed I was going to be in Reno (doing a presentation about innovation for Swift Communications). She saw it on LinkedIn. Debbie was going to be working at the University of Nevada Reno in a Maynard Institute program with another Washington friend, Evelyn Hsu, and a New York friend, Merrill Perlman.

I never would have thought of looking up any of those three friends in Reno. But because Debbie saw I was going to be there, I was able to spend an afternoon at UNR, sitting in on their program and visiting a little with three friends.

That wasn’t the only connection I made that week as a result of social media. On my way to Reno, or perhaps before leaving, I tweeted something about the plans and Donica Mensing, a UNR journalism professor I had met at an American Press Institute seminar, direct-messaged me, asking if I might be able to swing by UNR. Turns out the Maynard program was just down the hall from Donica’s office and we had a nice chat.

I wasn’t able to make a fifth in-person connection from a social-media contact who also noted my trip to Reno that week. Mike Higdon, whom I had never met but we were following each other for a while, asked if I’d have time to make it to Carson City on the trip. I didn’t, but we had a nice phone conversation later.

Well, since then, I’ve become much more interested in using TripIt. I’m not sure whether they added a new feature or whether I just finally noticed it. (Either way, it shows how social-media work: a good-enough start that gets better as the developers add features, or a tool with lots of possibilities that the users learn gradually as they take the time and grow comfortable.)

The feature that made me an avid TripIt user is the ability to forward an email itinerary to TripIt. The program creates an itinerary in my profile in seconds or adds the new reservation to an existing itinerary. I have forwarded airline reservations (from Expedia, two airlines and a travel agent), hotel reservations, shuttle reservations and a rental-car reservation. Each of them has gone into my TripIt travel schedule accurately.

I can forward an itinerary to Mimi (or allow her to see it on my profile) or to a client or colleague who might be meeting my flight or meeting later for dinner. And I have the whole itinerary on my iPhone to guide me to the right places as soon as I land (I can’t tell you how often I have forgotten to print out a rental-car or hotel reservation and didn’t know where I was staying or whose car I was renting).

I should add here that Dopplr offers the same opportunity to email itineraries, and I sent most of the same itineraries there. Most were not accurately created. For instance, on a trip to Lexington, Ky., connecting through O’Hare, Dopplr shows that as a trip to Chicago. I could edit that trip in Dopplr to correct it, but I like the ease of just sending the itinerary to TripIt. On the other hand, Dopplr offers more in terms of guides and reviews of attractions, lodging and dining at destinations. So if it works out its problems in reading emails and adds a LinkedIn app, it could be a strong competitor.

I don’t know how hot TripIt might become in the social media world. Though traveling is a niche, it’s a big niche of people who spend money and appreciate convenience and value. I can see TripIt becoming an essential aid for frequent travelers or fighting fiercely with Dopplr (and perhaps another contender or two I haven’t heard of yet) for audience in the travel niche.

I don’t know how big TripIt is and whether it’s bigger than Dopplr or trying to catch up. It’s not big enough in the social-media world yet to earn mention in Jeremiah Owyang’s Collection of Social Network Stats for 2009 or Adam Singer’s Social Media, Web 2.0 and Internet Stats. But it was favorably reviewed in PC World by Susan Hanley and has earned several mentions from Mashable. Time this week named TripIt one of the 50 best web sites of 2009.

And I’m starting to see results. Again this week, another LinkedIn contact saw that I was going to be in his area. We’re trying to work out whether we can get together.

This is how social media work. You read about a service or hear about it from a friend. You try it out and see some value. You dig in and learn some more and see more value. Then it surprises you and helps in some way you never expected.

I’m taking a trip to Nice between August 28th and August 29th.

Augmented Reality Is What Is Next – ‘AR’ for short.  We certainly did not coin the term or even break the first story about AR, but the possibilities of AR seem to be an excellent answer to one of the more popular questions that Mo and I get asked frequently…so, what is next?

Honestly people, can’t you just be happy with Twitter?

Well, we have talked previously about the Semantic Web and it’s theorized implications on travel, but never about AR.  However, this post from ReadWriteWeb and video from the firm developing this nifty little app seemed like the perfect introduction of AR to our readers.  So, what is AR?  Basically, it is adding a layer of information to the real world (around you), using technology.  Watch the video, visuals help.

(Watching via email?  The video is also here.)

Pretty amazing, right?  If you did not watch the video, at least watch the first couple of seconds.

So, you can begin to see the basic idea…adding layers or data to the world around us via using GPS, your phone and a whole lot of information gathering.  But let’s take the idea of AR to the travel industry.

A lot of us were just in Atlanta for DMAI.  What if you could have walked outside the Hyatt, pointed your phone at the 3 or 4 restaurants on the corner and determine via the ‘Urbanspoon’ layer which one was reviewed more favorably.

Or, pointed it around the Georgia Aquarium to learn more about the exhibits you were looking at. Or found the closest ATM.  Or the cleanest public bathroom.  Or your friends who have wandered two blocks over.

True, these examples are quite basic and do not show off the wide capabilities of AR, but for our purposes, they do give us something to think about.

And while much of this technology or searching ability does live within a product such as Google Maps, the visual benefits of AR has the potential to take this type of information to a much more usable level for the general public.

Keep watching for AR, it is what’s next.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/

Facebook Buys FriendFeed – If you are a social media connoisseur or just on Twitter all day, you probably noticed the news about Facebook purchasing FriendFeed.  And, I am guessing, most of you had not even heard of FriendFeed prior the announcement.  Well, think of FriendFeed as Twitter’s nerdy little brother…same basic idea, more features, but fewer users.  And while you can read about the speculation on how Facebook will utilize FriendFeed (see the article from Robert Scoble below), we will just leave you with this thought…if you did not have your brand name locked-up on FriendFeed, now would be a good time to sign up.
http://scobleizer.com/

Top Travel 2.0 Sites – Our counterpart and friend from Openplaces, Jeff, asked us to participate in a little blog post about our favorite ‘Travel 2.0′ sites.  Not ones to shy away from sharing our opinion, we agreed:

Great question, thanks for asking. Well, I, like most of you use a pretty standard set of sites when traveling: Kayak for booking, Oyster for (some) hotels, Dopplr for finding other travelers and Twitter for staying in touch. In fact, I could argue that Twitter is the answer to this question regardless of industry vertical. How can you travel without it? But, for today, let’s try to find a hidden gem in the rough and rocky terrain that is travel 2.0.

foursquare – Let’s categorize this one under local travel for now. Part game, part social networking site and a lot of fun. The idea is simple, yet has the potential to break through the review site clutter. Sign up, find your city and ‘check-in’ each time you visit a location…restaurant, building, bowling alley, etc…each ‘check-in’ earns you points, badges and the ultimate prize of being named mayor of your location. Two quotes I love from the site: “think urban mix tape” and “We’re not looking for reviews here…more ‘go here, do this’ or ‘eat here now’ tips.” Plus, they have an iPhone app, perfect for people on the go. A small and simple site that just needs a little more participation (critical mass!) to take off.

Be sure to read the whole article, more good thoughts on what is a good travel 2.0 site from a variety of fellow bloggers.
http://blog.openplaces.org/

For those of you who care where I am going next, I am now using Dopplr to track my trips.  Jordon and I have been using it for a while but I after I checked out their iPod and iPhone app,  I realized how truly useful it could be.

Recentemente sono stato un po’ assente dal blog. Vari i motivi che mi hanno “costretto” a non aggiornarlo, tra questi un viaggio che meditavo di fare da parecchio tempo ma che sono riuscito ad organizzare solo quest’anno. Prima di parlarne però vorrei fare delle opportune premesse. Circa quattro anni fa lasciai la città che mi ha ospitato, nutrito e cresciuto fino alla tenera età di 30 anni: Verona. Città splendida per certi versi, contradditoria e assurda per altri, ma comunque una città che non smetterò mai di amare.

Si sa quando si lasciano determinati “luoghi dell’anima”, si vive un momento quasi di abbandono. Ci si separa dagli affetti per fare posto ad altri, addirittura per riacciallare quelli vecchi che si pensava fossero persi. Ebbene malgrado esistano i contatti telefonici, le email al più, o i più classici indirizzi fisici, non è sempre facile o almeno non lo è nella misura in cui sia richiesto un certo sforzo o costo da parte dell’utente, instaurare la comunicazione.

Con l’avvento di Facebook, tutto questo è divenuto automatico. Hai il contatto, già dalle foto capisci quanto sia potuto invecchiare l’amico in questione, dalle info capisci che tipo di lavoro fa, se attinente agli studi che ha fatto oppure se ha cambiato completamente lavoro. Insomma si hanno una serie di informazioni che difficilmente una sola mail o telefonata potrebbero mostrare.

Ho ritrovato quasi tutti i miei amici e colleghi dell’Università tramite Facebook, e da lì chi più chi meno, tutti si interrogavano sulla possibilità che io tornassi a fare un salto da quelle parti. In effetti la cosa mi allettava sin da quando iniziavo a trovare i primi contatti, ma per questioni lavorative e non, mi sono sempre trovato nella condizione di dover procrastinare.

Alla fine l’ho fatto. Devo dire che buona parte del merito va anche a Dopplr che una volta pianificato il viaggio lo metteva in bella vista sul mio profilo Facebook. A quel punto era irrimediabilmente tardi per non partire. Salterò le romanticherie su cosa mi aspettassi da quel viaggio, su come sarebbe stato tornare alla corte di Cangrande e di come sarei stato accolto dai vecchi amici.

Il fatto che aggiornassi gli status ogni volta mi fosse possibile tramite twitter, diminuiva l’effetto sorpresa, almeno in quelli che mi seguivano tramite facebook, mentre faceva aumentare la curiosità di coloro che avevo da poco abbandonato. Confesso che all’inizio mi sembrava tutto così strano da pensare che non fossi mai stato in quella città. Illusioni, poco dopo un paio di ore ero in stazione a dare informazioni a turisti di passaggio che mi chiedevano dove fosse questo o quell’altro hotel.

Giungere a casa dell’amica storica, Monica e riabbracciarla è stata una sensazione che nessun social media potrà mai restituirmi, vedere tutti gli altri che non vedevo da tanto tempo e ritrovarli così come me li ricordavo, beh it’s priceless. E poi la città, le meraviglie artistiche che mi hanno cullato per ben dodici anni, la gente, il clima, anche quello sempre uguale con l’afa che ti attanaglia e non ti dà tregua. Pensare che ridevo degli status di MMC sul caldo a Verona, prima di partire e poi mi sono dovuto ricredere.

Ma le sensazioni più belle sono state sicuramente giungere all’Arena di Verona. Quando hai lavorato per circa nove anni in quell’ambiente lì, ti fa uno strano effetto ritornarci. Trovo la Lizzy, in gran forma e tutti coloro che negli anni si sono alternati tra la platea e gli spalti. Ovviamente grazie alla Nadia (mi scuso per il nordicismo, ma è d’obbligo) ottima amica di sempre e grande autista. Il tutto rigorosamente marchiato come status su facebook e twitter che da perfetti diari di bordo non mi hanno mai lasciato una volta in balìa di me stesso. Persino durante la Turandot, alla fine del I atto ho sentito l’esigenza di aggiornare.

Amici 2.0

Ad ogni modo questa esperienza durata appena 9 giorni è stata come una lunga immersione in apnea dalla quale non senti il bisogno di risalire se non per aggiornare lo status della tua pagina: “Sono felice”.

Hinfahrt, 05.08.2009

17:34 Uhr: Münster – Hamm, RE 29733
18:11 Uhr: Hamm – Hannover, ICE 643
19:36 Uhr: Hannover – Leipzig, IC 2135

Rückfahrt, 06.08.2009

18:40 Uhr: Leipzig – Hannover, IC 2149
21:31 Uhr: Hannover – Hamm, ICE 842
22:48 Uhr: Hamm – Münster, RE 29740

Falls jemand im Zug sein sollte: Der Kaffee geht auf mich!

Das Ganze und noch andere Reisen gibts auch bei Dopplr.

Librarians like to search, everyone else likes to find. – Roy Tenant

I fall into that first category and I don’t just like to search, I love it.  It used to be easy for me. After years of directories, metacrawlers, and search engines with limited indexes, there was Google. Almost immediately, I abandoned everything else and started googling everything. You probably did too.

Google was hot for a lot time. They still continue to innovate and release new technology, but it’s hard to get excited about Google anymore. Don’t get me wrong, if I could only use one search engine, I’d definitely choose Google. But, it’s fun to have options.

There’s been talk about Bing. I have a dislike for all things Microsoft. They don’t get me and I don’t get them. My visits to Bing have not impressed me, so if you like it, please let me know why.

Moving on to a fun one: hunch.com. This is not a good place to look up a specific quote, but if you want to find a professional quote for a presentation, it will suggest some. Hunch encourages you to tell it more and more about yourself by rating it’s suggestions and through a quiz-like search interface. The first time I used it, I was floored by how quickly it seemed to know me. It’s like Amazon’s suggestion system, but for more than products. It told me which English Premiership team I should become a fan of and Tottenham looks promising.

I wrote about Twitter search a few days ago. I like Twitter because the results are directly from other people. Discovering people with similar interests or getting a wide variety of opinions on a topic is great.

Wolfram Alpha is very cool. It’s search results are tables and graphs. You can see weather trends where you live, use it to solve equations, or look up a word. Check this out for “find.” I remember the demo being very cool and I haven’t spent a lot of time with it, but I like knowing it’s around.

Dopplr will keep track of your travel and tell you about cities you’re going to visit. So instead of googling Austin, you can check out the places other users have been. And if the city you’re going to has Yelp, give that a try too.

Need something to wear and don’t want to have to search multiple online retailers? You can try like.com and shop visually. It really came in useful for finding shoes to go with a dress I was wearing to a wedding this Spring. I also remember another similar search engine, but can’t remember it’s name.

You can use Shazam to find out the name of a song that’s playing. You can use Retrievr to find pictures and images that are like something you sketch. You can even use Go2Web20 to search for more Web 2.0 search engines.

Charlie speaks to the founder of LinkedIn, a social network used primarily for business connections and job searching.

For the past few days, I’ve been listening to Seth Godin’s Tribes on audiobook while I walk to and from work. It’s been a great book so far, and I’d highly recommend it to people who haven’t read it yet.

I just got to the part where he talks about the two approaches one can take in strengthening their tribe: tightening or broadening. In a nutshell, if you want to make your tribe more powerful, you can work to either tighten it, or broaden it. If you tighten, you strengthen the connections between the members of the tribe, or between the leader and the tribe membership. If you broaden, you bring new people into the tribe. It’s a bit of a quality vs. quantity battle.

Using this terminology though, we can easily extrapolate the concept to the social networks that help facilitate tribe building. Social Networks themselves can either be tools with which we tighten our personal networks, or broaden them. By looking at it this way, I think a lot of the “what is twitter for?” and other questions people have about social media can be answered with (relative) ease.

So, let’s look at each type individually:

First, a tightening network. Think Facebook, Dopplr, or Friendfeed. These tools don’t encourage you to meet new people, instead, they enable you to strengthen the connections you have with people you already know. These networks benefit from their closed nature by encouraging us to share information that many deem private (whether it be last night’s drunken photos or your vacation plans). You won’t meet new people on these networks, but you will get to know the people you do know, better.

In sharp contrast to tightening networks are broadening networks. These networks encourage you to connect with new people, not people you already know. The textbook case, of course, is Twitter, but brightkite and most content sharing sites (flickr, youtube, blip.fm, etc.) work in a similar way. For most twitter users, Twitter is a way to meet new people they don’t know in real life; people who share interests, are from the same city, or who are just really funny.

While this is all well and good from a theoretical perspective, the practical implications of understanding this categorization are huge. I’ve had a ton of friends tell me they don’t want to sign up for twitter because they don’t know anyone else using it. Or I’ve had friends who sign up, follow the four friends they already know who are on it, and then complain that it isn’t that interesting. Conversely, you often hear stories of people posting their embarrassing videos on YouTube to share them with a few friends, and then the video goes viral and their lives are ruined. Both of these represent a fundamental misunderstanding of what the tools are for.

Once you understand what the tools are for, using them becomes easy. You don’t need to sign up to twitter if all you plan on doing is talking to the friends you already have on facebook. And you shouldn’t expect to get a large following on networks which are designed to tighten your connections (unless you’re already famous).

Additionally, I think this is an important consideration for people who are building new online tools. Do you want people to use

What do you think? Is this a good way to think about the differences in social networks? Should we even bother thinking about it? What other classifications exist between networks?