Ton's Interdependent Thoughts: Can I Crash?

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Can I Crash?

I have had the pleasure of hosting a few bloggers at our home in the past two years. Ming and Jon Husband stayed here, even though we never met before, as well as Martin Roell, whom I had met before. Our blogs, and the interaction through and around it served as the base of trust that was enough to invite them to our home.

Peter Rukavina (we met at Reboot) today pointed me to a project by Henriette Weber Andersen and Thomas Kristiansen that builds on the possiblity of building trust through blogging. At Can I Crash? "a service that lets you lend your sofa to travelling bloggers" bloggers can indicate their willingness to host a blogger at their home, or their desire to stay in a certain city. Bloggers can then judge on the content of their respective blogs and the following interaction whether they want to host or be hosted.

I entered our place for bloggers that happen to pass through Enschede and are in need of a place to stay. I did specify a requirement that the visiting blogger should be blogging for at least a year. That way I can get a better picture of someone by the body of postings that has been created.

There are of course a whole lot of similar services like these. I used different European students networks to stay in Aachen, Berlin, Budapest and Vienna, while still at university. I know of similar networks of Ham radio operators, back-packers, and all kinds of Rotary-like service clubs. But this is a bit different as it positions your blog as a reputation builder.

Technorati Tags : reputationsystems, reciprocity

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(posted by Ton Zijlstra at December 31, 2005 12:02 AM)

Comments

The 1 year req. is great. There's no getting around it! If there is no archive for a full year back at the blog, you do not qualify.

Posted by: Olle Jonsson at December 31, 2005 09:36 AM

I agree with Olle, but doesn't that generally say more about the idea, than your situation? I don't believe bloggers have that much in common that we should have some sort of bond between us. In my opinion I have as much in common with other bloggers as I do with other users of Google, but you don't see any one stopping you on the street asking you for a place to stay because they are also using Google?

Maybe I am just critical, but sometimes that's healthy when developing new ideas.

Posted by: Jacob Boetter at January 1, 2006 08:22 PM

Hi Jacob,
I agree bloggers don't necessarily have anything in common. But that is also true for the other examples I mentioned, and they still work. But, a blog can probably serve as a good reputation builder as you read there about what drives and interests the author, especially so if the blog has been around for some time.

So, while I am not inviting every blogger to my home with this, I have provided a way for strangers to let me consider it. The contents of their blog is my basis to see whether I think it might work. That is a whole lot more to work with than e.g. the people I stayed with in the mentioned example just because we happened to both be studying electrical engineering somewhere in Europe.

Posted by: Ton Zijlstra at January 2, 2006 08:13 AM

Hi, I just want to touch on this.

as always Boetter, I have to disagree ( that's our thing isn't it ?) so you're basically saying that you don't have anything in common with other people, because bloggers ( before they where mutated *g*)are in it's essence people.

I do communities for a living. Can I Crash took me 4 hours to set up and I am still PR-ing *s*

the reason I did it was because I didn't want to pay 400 euro's for a hotelroom for 2 or 3 nights everytime I go out of town

very selfish, but it works for me..

and Ton, hope to see you at next reboot ( I was there too)..

Posted by: Henriette Weber Andersen at January 26, 2006 02:29 PM