November 08, 2007

Zbigniew says : Myspace or Facebook? I put my bet on ...

6 comments:

John Powers said...

I checked out Couch Surfing because of Zbigniew's post, and the attention to trust is really nuanced there.

zby said...

Trust is both the product of the real world interactions that thrive in CS and it is absolutely indispensable ingredient of CS (after all would you let a stranger to sleep on your couch if you were not absolutely sure that he is not a thief, murderer or just unhygienic?). Necessity is the mother of invention - CS cannot work without special measures against misbehaviour.

Composing said...

So how do they get it going then?

(trust, I mean)

zby said...

As I've said - necessity is the mother of invention. CS has many security features - they do perhaps look a bit minor, but they reinforce each other. For example there is a way to confirm your name and address by paying a minimal fee from your credit card. Then there is a way to express your evaluation of a person in both hidden and open forms - so that if you are inhibited to express negative opinions openly (as it is quite common) you can still inform the system and it is somehow saved there. And most importantly - as I've also already mentioned - trust is also the product here - after spending a night in the same room with someone you can say you know him quite well I would say, for sure much better then after months of meeting that person at work. There is a strong positive feedback loop in that system.

John Powers said...

I would add that there's a tradition of meet ups for local couch surfers. Often people from other communities attend these.

zby said...

Looks like I was a bit naive in the praise about CS: http://www.opencouchsurfing.org/ But on the other hand I could not even imagine an Open Facebook movement.