O'Reilly Events on Dopplr

Dopplr, the traveler's social network, has added events. In this initial implementation you have to use one of the supplied URLs.

Here are the URLs for the next six O'Reilly conferences.

• OSCON - http://dplr.it/oscon08
• EuroRails - http://dplr.it/eurorailsconf08
• Web 2.0 Expo NYC - http://dplr.it/w2exponyc
• Web 2.0 Expo Europe - http://dplr.it/w2expoeurope
• Web 2.0 Summit - http://dplr.it/w2summit08
• MoneyTech - http://dplr.it/moneytech09

If you are a Dopplr user and you click one of these events it will pre-populate the trip fields with the date, location, and a note with the event's name. After you accept the trip a badge for the event will appear on your calendar as shown in the image to the right.

I like the smaller URL for these links. It will make it easier to pass around via your favorite micro-blog without running it through an URL shortening service. GetSatisfaction also used a custom short URL, http://gsfn.us, for their Overheard feature - Radar post. I wonder if this will become a trend. If so I hope monstrous-URL-creator Amazon gets the religion early.

Dopplr also recently released public travel pages (mine). Each portion of the page is widgetized and can be embedded (like below). Each widget is also separately linkable like my personal velocity. These widgets really make Dopplr much more useful (as do the recently added command-line options for entering trips). If you have a public page for your users I would suggest following Dopplr's interaction design choices closely.

(Disclosure: OATV has an investment in GetSatisfaction and in Dopplr competitor Tripit.)