Why CouchSurfing is enabling QuantCast to measure visitors is an interesting question. No doubt this will spark lots of “theories”.

Personally, I think it’s interesting to note that the weekly reach of couchsurfing.com is circa 300k people, nothing like the 1m “members” that CS Inc claims (at best their are 1m profiles).

I feel that it’s time we started to take direct action to open up these channels of communication. I’m not suggesting we publish the information on this blog, I don’t think it’s the correct vehicle. I’ve started a discussion on how we might publish this information on the Google Groups mailing list. Please join the conversation.

Let’s start with what it is:

• It is a label, a title, a word, a term
• It is a web site, a blog, a mailing list, a wiki
• It is a loosely (dis)organised campaign
• It is related to CouchSurfing and hospitality networks
• It is a movement, a meme, an idea of loosely shared values

Now what it is not:

• It is not an organisation, it has no offices, no officers, no constitution
• It has no members, there is no list of “OpenCSers”
• It is not “official”, nobody can speak on behalf of it, nobody can say they represent it

OpenCouchSurfing cannot agree or disagree with statements. It’s simply a means to communicate. As one can’t say “I am not E=MC²“, so one cannot really say “I am or am not OpenCS”. OpenCS is an idea, a campaign, at the very most, a petition.

Of course, all of this is simply my own opinion, because OpenCS cannot express an opinion or describe itself. So I speak on my own behalf, not in any official capacity on behalf of OpenCS.

The new NDA includes a non-compete clause preventing volunteers from working with any other travel or social networks. It also requires that volunteers transfer their Intellectual Property rights to CouchSurfing International Inc.

I heard that somebody describe it perfectly, they said “it’s not volunteering, it’s slavery”.