Shelfari and Dopplr: Have book, will travel

MANILA, Philippines - The most popular social networking sites today such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter are so good in digitizing real world connections. However, there are many other online social networks hinged on specific subjects that are just as effective in providing services to groups of people with shared interests.

Two good examples of category-specific and individual-centered social networks are Shelfari and Dopplr. Shelfari is about books and Doppler is about travels. Although neither come close to the popularity of social networking giants like Facebook with 350 million members and Twitter with 44.5 million, Shelfari and Dopplr nevertheless enjoy a good number of followers who have discovered their value which goes beyond providing constant interpersonal updates.

Shelfari was launched in 2006 as a social cataloging website that immediately attracted the attention of Amazon.com which invested $1 million in Shelfari after its third month of operations. Then in August 2008, Amazon.com acquired Shelfari whose chief value proposition to its bookworm members is the capability to build one’s virtual library.

Having a virtual bookshelf at Shelfari allows members to easily view their inventory of books. Shelfari pushes to members different images of actual book covers, from paperbacks to hardbounds, so members only need to select which exact version they have and upload it to their library.

Like all social networking sites, Shelfari also highly recommends connecting to other members so it then becomes a sort of online book club. Here, members can learn what others have to say about a certain book to help them decide if they should buy it or not or to simply know what new books are out there.

Dopplr, on the other hand, is a social networking service for people who travel a lot. Dopplr offers users an online tool to create itineraries of their travel plans and spot correlations with their contacts’ travel plans in order to arrange meetings at any point on their journeys.

Dopplr was named after Christian Doppler, discoverer of the scientific sound theory called the Doppler Effect. It was launched in 2007 by a London-based start-up as a social networking service for frequent travelers.

By letting members post details of their travels such as dates and places, Dopplr solves travelers’ need to be able to connect with their contacts that happen to be in the same place as they are. Dopplr also serves as a social atlas that aims to improve its members’ travel experiences by providing travel journal and feedback collected from other members.

Many travelers don’t keep a personal log or journal of their travels but always wish they do. Dopplr takes care of this task by producing a report every six months of a member’s trips. The report summarizes the places a member has been over the course of six months, how frequently he or she has traveled and other facts about the trips. Of course, the report can only be as complete as the travel information the user offers or posts.

In addition, Dopplr users can also calculate the carbon footprint their journeys have produced and have that included in their account data.

A survey carried out in early 2008 on influential tech companies by the Guardian Media Group named Dopplr as a company to watch out for. Dopplr’s high online mileage attained in just two years caught the attention of Nokia which bought it in September 2009.