Comments on: Development as SPOF

By: John McIntire

John McIntire — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:17:30 +0000

Nice post, great work. I have recently started my own blog so its good to learn from what you have going here. Many Thanks.

By: bleh

bleh — Wed, 20 May 2009 06:17:54 +0000

“This makes me conclude that Couchsurfing is *DEAD*. Yes, indeed, I must say this with pain in my heart, the current way CS works (ignoring willing programmers, DBA’s etc) is not the way CS will reach the 2 million people”

How about this: if/when CS reaches 2M members will you shut the hell up and admit you have no idea what you’re talking about?

By: bleh

bleh — Wed, 20 May 2009 06:15:58 +0000

Yawn. Yet another guy who spent a few weeks/months inside the working of CS only to bitch about it for years afterwards with no actual scope of what’s going on currently. Yawn.

By: Azarethroy

Azarethroy — Wed, 20 May 2009 03:57:37 +0000

I think the problem with Bewelcome is it’s boring. I think the fact that it’s open-source and a democracy is great – but most people are more interested in the travel. So maybe there should be more features like incorporating relevant advanced features from Travbuddy, Dopplr, Twitter & Facebook. Overhaul the design and create an application platform.

I’m think how people moved from Myspace to Facebook. MySpace feels like fun but Facebook feels like an all-in-one tool.

Also maybe a key differentiator could be to team up with aid agencies, charities, WOOF, SERVAS and Intentional Communities – so travelers have an opportunity to do some volunteer work during their travels. I think this is what could save BW.

BW needs to be different. Really different. BW needs more than democracy. It needs visionaries. Good Luck!

By: Fake51

Fake51 — Fri, 15 May 2009 21:34:58 +0000

Bewelcome is not dead and development hasn’t stopped. It’s true that we’ve hit a “dead” period in the sense nothing much seems to have happened for some time now, however: some features will get a much needed overhaul very soon and more is planned.

What’s going to make or break BW is – as far as I can tell – whether or not the volunteers that believe in BW will stick it out. The BW site is not going to deteriorate, so if we manage to hold on to good people, I’m pretty sure more will join to chip in. Probably slowly, but still.

Regards
Peter – Fake51

By: Sara

Sara — Fri, 08 May 2009 10:48:08 +0000

@Callum Some days ago i found belodged.com – Its really the opposite of “open”couchsurfing – “autocrazy” positioned. At the moment only <10′000 members but in the discussion forms (not that many posts) they answerd many requests and implemented what the users asked for.

By: Callum

Callum — Thu, 07 May 2009 01:08:17 +0000

I’m not sure who’s posting under the pseudonym, but I agree with their view, BeWelcome appears to be dying. I think such a small scale project needs a small group of dedicated, empowered people who can just get things done without being bogged down in “democracy”. I think democracy is great once an organisation is running, but it needs a little autocracy to get started.

I’ve heard rumours of other people entering the hospex market, but I don’t see any sites that offer genuine competition to CouchSurfing. I believe HospitalityClub is also dying.

I think the figure that’s most accurate is around 300k active members. That’s where Quantcast puts the numbers which are based on actual site visits, not “profiles in the database”.

By: BeWelcome is dead

BeWelcome is dead — Wed, 06 May 2009 08:07:25 +0000

“I sincerely hope that BeWelcome.org will not have the same problem.”

BeWelcome is already dead. Look at the recent discussions on the BW forums where people admit that development has stopped. The old vols have gotten tired and no one new is stepping forward. And I expect BW to continue to have problems because it has no clear target. CS and HC grew because they advertised to young people the chance to party, have a good time, and travel lots. Virtually everyone I know signed up there because they got something out of it. BW’s only sales pitch is “Look, we are an open community!”, and few are going to contribute anything out of pure altruism.

BW needs to identify a clear demographic and purpose. Unfortunately, it can’t do that without alienating some members, as the community is currently divided between HC/CS types who just want to party or travel for cheap, and more serious types who think BW should be all about formal cultural exchange. See Spectie’s latest post on the BW forums. A very active host, he wonders how many people share the same views about BW that he does, namely it’s at its most basic a chance to give travelers a free place to stay and stay oneself for free when traveling.