Life is grand

The iCal support over at Dopplr is an interesting technique that I think will gain wider traction in the coming years. The idea of maintaining data in an application and allowing multiple external applications to make use of it is not that new but what is yet not fully explored is the idea of applications that you rarely ever directly use but which still deliver real value. Dopplr doesn’t have to focus on a user interface for data input and instead can focus on analysing data you send to it from other apps. Dopplr’s real value comes in the connections it makes between your travel plans and other peoples travel plans.

The win is that you get more use out of entering data into Google Calendar as it drives up the value you get out of Dopplr.

Now imagine if Dopplr could push connections back into Google Calendar. You wouldn’t need to visit Dopplr to check who else will be in a town when you are, you just open your Google Calendar as you do every morning and it is right in front of you in an interface you are familiar with. Dopplr could still make money through information attached to the events in Google Calendar.

Creating new sharing agreements of your travel plans with people could even be done through GMail (which is connected to Google Calendar.) No direct Dopplr interaction required at all.

And the nice thing is that if we stick to known formats (iCal, AtomPub, FOAF etc.) the ecosystem won’t be restricted to you having to use Google Calendar with Dopplr. You could use Outlook or any iCal supporting calendar system.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 29th, 2008 at 11:38 pm and is filed under Post. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.