A lot of the time when I hear about new social software I wrinkle my nose. Take this post hoping that people will take up Dopplr, which is apparently a site where you enter your travel details and it tells you if you’re going to be in the vicinity of friends while travelling. Why did I wrinkle my nose? Because the beneficiaries of this kind of site are people who travel a hell of a lot. The rest of us are just being harangued into entered our very occasional trips in order to provide the pool of people that our well-travelled friends might or might not hang out with. The chances of me personally finding someone to hang out with when travelling are much higher if I just post an itinerary to my blog and hope someone sends me an email saying huh, I’ll be in town that weekend!
. (Speaking of which, anyone I know going to be in Iaşi, Romania, between July 22 and August 6? Thought not. Let me know if you want a postcard though.)
Be that as it may, here’s a social software idea that sounds useful: Crowdvine + Pathable, a combo which FOO Camp people used to hook up people with similar interests. Conferences should indeed do more of this stuff: you and him, you guys need to talk!
There are meet ups and BOFs and such things of course, but it does sound like it’s possible to develop the matching a lot if you can persuade people that it’s worth their while to do up a decent profile.