As an Airbnb host I would add that there's more to renting out your home than just the money. You can really see how you're helping people travel or visit their family or company headquarters (we've had all of these and more). We can give them a great home, show them all the great stores, restaurants, cafes, and see the huge appreciation for this kind of experience. It's life in another city as people in that city live it. Also remember that here in San Francisco almost all of the hotels are downtown or around Union Square so we can bring people to all the other neighborhoods of the city. I've also been an Airbnb guest and it's amazing as well. It's wonderful to support local people and get great advice about where to go. The site has fundamentally changed the way I think about travel.
People have been renting out their homes to visitor for a long time but what Airbnb has done by creating a central marketplace is incredible. It feels as important as Amazon reinventing online purchases. Like many of the great internet companies Airbnb is ruffling a lot of feathers from intrenched businesses and changing the way people think about their private space. What other company has been so successful at fostering connections between people who have never met in the real world?
No, it's just renting out the rooms. I know the "CPM" analogy doesn't really fit perfectly but the point is that the Airbnb service is so effective at driving traffic it makes me more than a dollar per pageview on avg. Of course it's their site but you can think of it sort of like an e-commerce platform where I can open a store and sell my extra space. It works super well.
Absolutely, it's not going to be easy and we are aware of the legal problems with privacy. But yes, the facebook app is just our first product. We are working on off facebook stuff as well.
http://apps.facebook.com/courses is our first product and we are looking to build sweet tools for students and professors/teachers as we move forward.
We have put a lot of thought into how to get our products into schools -- without all the shrimp and cocktails -- and we think we have some good ideas and great opportunities lined up.
I've had great experiences using processing.
It's been sweet for prototyping multimedia stuff - live video processing, physical computing, data visualization, toys.
The libraries make it quick and painless to get graphics floating around.
People have been renting out their homes to visitor for a long time but what Airbnb has done by creating a central marketplace is incredible. It feels as important as Amazon reinventing online purchases. Like many of the great internet companies Airbnb is ruffling a lot of feathers from intrenched businesses and changing the way people think about their private space. What other company has been so successful at fostering connections between people who have never met in the real world?