Forgot to blog this last week, but I think it's an interesting bit, so here we go.
When I had to plan my trip to denmark, once realized that monday will be a bank holiday I decided to spend the weekend in lovely Copenaghen.
It also sounded like a perfect chance to go couchsurfing once again, so I quickly picked up three or four names and contacted them. Oddly enough, got answer only from one, saying I had not enough references (I have 5 positive and no negative) and no "security level" (true, I never paid for it)...
which makes perfect sense, but reminded me of the different, personal threshold and values for "trust". And the fact that couchsurfing allows individual to discriminate so granularly probably means they chose fairly good indicators: I may not agree with the idea that paying for the service is actually an indicator of good attitude and intentions, but now I know that for other people that's paramount.
Anyway, since I like happy endings, let's quickly move on to the end of the story, where I remembered of a conversation with Regine about this other network created by Copenaghen based Henriette Weber "who basically is a young female who is tired of busting her entrepreneurial budget when there is things (dinners, conferences, vacations) in other countries (or cities) she wants to attend". It sounded perfect, so after another email I ensured my couch in the city for tonight. There are also a few interesting consideration here, that as usual deal with the strange connection that the blogger community builds: whereas with couchsurfing is always like kind of a cocktail of curiousity/mistery/expectation about the host/guest culture, attitude, interests, in this case I know a few more things about my host, I know how she writes and what she's actually up to nowadays, and I'm sure we can share a lot of interesting conversations about what went on during HyperText for example.
Once again, the blogosphere spots an additional dimension versus the general "tribe" concept where a group of people identifies themselves under a common concept/idea/interest: bloggers share a media, and that empowers connections.
if you pay on couchsurfing, you get your address certified and some people (especially females pondering about hosting a male) really do value this. it is a sort of "someone knows who you are in the real world and we both know this, so I'm a bit reassured you will keep this in mind when you will behave near me"
tut tut, about canicrush, I smell "echo chamber" here and I smell a suggestion for a book "republic.com" of sunstein. yes, he is not a blogger but a constitutionalist, haugh! enjoy it!
sooner or later, i will have a more structured presence again ... but it is interesting to be a ghost in the blogosphere ...