Community Study Paper: Shabbat.com & Couchsurfing.org Isabelle Giuong, Jolina Haberkamm, Seth Dubin CS 4472: Design of Online Communities Spring 2012, Dr. Eric Gilbert
1. Introduction Shabbat, the Hebrew word for Sabbath, is the weekly holiday of the seventh day of creation observed from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday. For many Jews, the day is consecrated and considered a spiritual and physical vacation from the rest of the work week. The section about Shabbat.com describes the day as “the pinnacle of the creation of the universe, and its observance can be seen as a reminder of the purposefulness of the world and the role of human beings in it.” This is mostly observed in the comfort of one’s home with traditional Shabbat food, prayers, singing, and Torah (Bible) study. It is a time when the nuances and hassles of the outside world are put on hold so that one may rest. Whether one is travelling for business or pleasure, or one does not have a family to celebrate with, there is never a shortage of people who are in need of a Shabbat home. This is where Shabbat.com becomes handy. Shabbat.com is a niche social networking and hospitality exchange website which caters to Jews who are interested in hosting or being hosted for a Friday night Sabbath meal. Rabbi Benzion Klatzko launched the site in January 2010 after he realized that Jewish people had the desire to invite total strangers into their homes to share the Shabbat spirit. Klatzko explained that “it’s a big deal to invite people over on Shabbat. We have a lot of guests every Friday - around 50 - 100. People like to have guests, but they don’t always have access to guests, so people are always asking us, ‘Can you send us some of your guests?’ It’s a little bit uncomfortable, because they want to come to us. That’s why they ask to come to us. So part of me wanted to tell them, ‘Go get your own guests.’” Thus, he created Shabbat.com. Despite its similarities to other preexisting hospitality exchange websites, Klatzko was uninfluenced by them and grew Shabbat.com from scratch. As of April 10, 2012, Shabbat.com had well over 19,000 users worldwide.The users were mainly from the United States, Canada, Israel, and France. Over
100 countries are now represented in the user base. While it started in the Orthodox Jewish Community (religious, observant Jews), Shabbat.com is catered to and openned to any person of any level of observance who wishes to share the Sabbath with fellow Jews. Couch Surfing markets itself as “the world’s largest travel community.” The site boasts millions of users from over 230 countries who make extensive online profiles advertising their willingness and desires to host guests or to be hosted for a short amount of time. The site has become a culture of its own as people have identified themselves as couchsurfers. To be a couchsurfer means to be adventurous and willing to try new things. It means being able to bypass traditional hotel costs and not being a banal tourist. Couchsurfing relies on the human desire to meet new people and experience new places through a local’s perspective. Users pride themselves on being culturally diverse and accepting of all people. As Alex, an avid user, said, “With that openness comes a sense of community. It’s like: ‘Oh, you think something totally different than me. That’s cool! Tell me about it.’ You get to know all types of people from all walks of life, from all different places. They’re just all interested in travel.” The participants’ names used throughout this study may have been changed or altered to protect their identities. 1.2 Method We had originally planned on solely studying Shabbat.com, but we found the site to be limited in its use and range of daily interaction soon after. We then extended the scope of our research to include both Shabbat.com and couchsurfing.org, both of which use the online medium to pair hosts and guests who otherwise would be strangers. Because Shabbat.com’s intended users and community are Jewish, our Jewish team member Seth emailed the site’s founder and moderator to inform him of our project and intent on joining the site. More than
pleased, he allowed Jolina and Isabelle to join the site but asked that they disclose on their created profiles their student research intent. Seth already had an account created in 2010. He had visited New York and the founder’s house in December 2009 where he initially met Rabbi Klatzko, who at the time, was just starting up the site. Klatzko agreed to a phone interview with us. After getting a feel for the site, we each contacted several users on Shabbat.com. Many replied that they have an account but barely use the site while others used it occasionally and would be happy to talk to us. Seth tested the guest request form by sending a Friday night dinner request to a local Rabbi, Rabbi G. He responded almost instantaneously that he’d love to host and would love to meet our group. Seth met Rabbi G. in person for an informative discussion of his use of the site. Seth also met with Blake, a Georgia Tech student who used Couch Surfing on one occasion to find last minute out-of-town lodging. Isabelle accompanied a Jewish friend to a local Shabbat at the house of a host who is a Shabbat.com user. It was something that she normally does not participate in, but it was a wonderful experience because there was singing, dancing, food, and an opportunity to meet new people, similar to any other good party. There were guests from local schools, but none were participants of Shabbat.com, so she did not get any interviews. Nonetheless, the night was an informative display of the Shabbat spirit that Shabbat.com aims to spread. The contacts Jolina made through Shabbat.com had not used the site more than once or twice to actually host or attend a Shabbat even if they all were active within the Jewish community. One of the interviewees, Adam, spoke for his family who had created a "family account" as hosts and had barely been on the site even though he knew a lot about it. Bobby, another contact from Shabbat.com who teaches an Introduction class in Judaism at Georgia Tech, had been hosting both sleepovers and Shabbats, but only through the synagogue and had
just started to use the site. The third interviewee, Zach, had heard about Shabbat.com through a friend who had previous experience from the site. Zach had only attended one Shabbat coordinated through the Shabbat.com but had used Couch Surfing several timed during a Euro trip couple of years ago. Each of us created a Couch Surfing profile. Isabelle sent personalized and mass messages to about five to ten people a day for approximately five days with very little luck. She was able to meet in person for an interview over coffee with Jordan, a local graduate student. Afterwards, she received a positive reference from Jordan and secured a Skype interview with one of Jordan’s former guests. Isabelle also received a reply from Couch Surfing’s Atlanta Ambassador but he declined to an interview, but invited her to a local event instead. Isabelle and Seth went to the local Couch Surfers’ meetup that the Atlanta CS Ambassador was hosting. The event was at a nearby brewery/restaurant where approximately 15 regulars and travelers passing through Atlanta met for a fun, social Thursday night. A few of the couch surfers at the event agreed to interview with us later, so we met Alex for a one hour interview in person, and Isabelle instant messaged Jim for a brief interview.
2. Design Principles 2.1 Purpose Both sites claim to be the largest of their kinds in connecting hosts with guests. 2.1.1 Shabbat.com The purpose of Shabbat.com is very clear. The front page reads “Host or be hosted for a Shabbat meal.” Underneath, potential members are welcomed to the site, boasting to be the “world’s largest Jewish social network” - both a clear explicit and implicit purpose for which the
site aims to meet - to connect hosting Jews to hosted Jews for a Friday night Shabbat dinner. The audience is divided into two subgroups, hosts and guests. Users are not restricted to their roles, however, and can switch between those and be active as both a guest and a host at different times. Implicitly, the site aims to broaden the global Jewish community by shrinking the barriers between people while at the same time making the Jewish community more intimate and accessible. The site has a fundamental backstory with its Jewish tradition to bring people together to share a great Shabbat. It clearly shines through on the “Our Team” page, presenting the biographies behind the co-founders and staff members. There is no doubt that they are not in it for the money, but rather that they all have a great love and appreciation of Shabbat and the greater Jewish culture, religion, and community. They proudly present that members have been gathered from “2382 cities and 99 countries around the world.” 2.1.2 CouchSurfing.org The purpose of Couch Surfing is to facilitate the pairing of hosts and travellers who need a place to lodge. Users use it for much more than that, however. The site is used as a place to meet interesting new people when traveling, even when hotels are affordable options. Travelers often like to get the locals’ perspective on a city and community rather than the tourist treatment. “To be honest, I joined the site because I wanted a free place to stay. You also get someone who is able to show you the city other than monuments. [...] Online facilitates the offline connections. When I first moved to Atlanta, I didn’t know anybody, so I joined the Atlanta group on Couch Surfing. I started commenting on posts and people started replying until finally, I met people.” - Alex
2.2 Gathering Places 2.2.1 Shabbat.com The design of the page gives a very warm and friendly impression and fulfills its purpose to be inviting, safe and genuine. There are different gathering places since the page provides various services, such as finding hosts and guests, dating, messaging etcetera. The main gathering place, however, is of the dinner table displayed in the sights banner - a large, luxurious table set for an intimate feast. There is not an online forum or gathering place, however. 2.2.2 CouchSurfing.org Couch surfing offers various online gathering places which spill over to offline interactions. Below is a list of categories which offer thousands of other subcategories and posts. Many users discuss issues in these forums and never meet in person. Some of the localized posts deal with meeting up at community events such as Couch Surfers’ Meetups and barbeques. Other posts discuss activities relative to specific locations - Belly Dancing in Egypt, for example. Local couch surfers often have regular meetups. We visited an Atlanta CS meetup one Thursday night where fifteen regulars and travelers met for dinner and drinks. More people were rolling in as we were leaving! We were surprised at how many of the people present were already close friends. A mid-aged latina was rowdy and convivial with a young fresh out of college guy. They were discussing how excited they were for 80s Dance Night at the Clermont Lounge, Atlanta’s oldest strip club. Apparently, the Clermont was their favorite monthly event. Real life gathering places such as these develop outside of online interactions.
2.3 Evolving Profiles 2.3.1 Shabbat.com The user profiles are constantly evolving. The network can grow, and the guestbook shows if a user is active. It is also possible to view a user’s friends and their history together. Members can edit their own profiles and are encouraged to update their weekly default status from “not actively looking for guests or hosts. 2.3.2 CouchSurfing.org Couch Surfing has great opportunities for profiles to evolve over time. The statistics of how active a member is clearly seen on the user profile, reply rate, last login, friends, references etcetera. Members can create extensive profiles, providing information about themselves, their languages, travels, philosophy, book and movie interests, about their thought on couch surfing and many other topics.
2.4 Leadership 2.4.1 Shabbat.com Even is the site does not aim to promote individual people above others, leadership is promoted in a hidden sense. An experienced host can be approved to host bigger events like a Shabbaton. There are not any official levels to succeed in, however, so it is impossible to advance the membership. 2.4.2 CouchSurfing.org Unlike Shabbat.com, CouchSurfing.org alows users to obtain leadership titles. Users can become moderators of forum groups that they create or become selected by current mods of existing groups. However, Jim, the Atlanta group’s mod tells us “i[sic] don't have any real responsibilities. i don't have any real power either [...] other than possibly placebo effect, others' perception of my having power.” Another leadership title is the CouchSurfing City Ambassador. The CS City Ambassador is a more official position because users must be selected by current site officials. Unlike forum moderators, ambassadors have enumerated roles and responsibilities that consists of welcoming and helping new CouchSurfing.org members as well as hosting monthly events whereever they are. As a result, ambassadors are more well-known and can find hosts and guests easier.
2.5 Code Of Conduct 2.5.1 Shabbat.com The Code of Conduct is clearly visible, the Terms of Use is extensive but easy to read and apologized for as being a bit cold and clinical. There is a crash course guide about Shabbat and
how to act as a host or guest. Most people would never misbehave on a site like Shabbat.com, but it might be a little tense when meeting complete strangers for the first time. "If the guests and the hosts both know the importance of observing the Shabbat, it does make it easier, but as always, there is a bit awkwardness to the situation at first" . - Adam People open up their houses to new people which means that they are willing to let them into their personal space. It is assumed that most people are decent enough to never take advantage of that. Not all experiences can be great, and not everyone is a perfect match, but it seems that most of our interviewees have had good experiences from their Shabbat.com meetings. The bad experiences exist, but they result in memorable stories. "We've had bad meal experiences, but those usually just make good stories." - Bobby “I did have someone contact me through the site, and because it seemed like he was a mass messenger and wrote to many people, I ignored him. And then he called me and had someone else call me a few times. I set him up somewhere else, and then on Sunday I found out that I was very glad I didn’t host him. But that's not something that would happen often.” - Rabbi G. 2.5.2 CouchSurfing.org Couch Surfing is a B Corporation, and as such, is committed to solving social problems. It relies on the assumption that people are good and have beneficial intentions for every user. Di, a current traveler and CouchSurfing user believes that, “this is a community for nice people.”
In its Terms of Use, they make clear that personal contacts made through the site are the users’ own doing and the site is solely a venue for making such connections. Couch Surfing does as much as possible in aiding users to confirm fellow users’ true and faithful identities, but they must take precaution and safety measures when moving from online to real life encounters. Of course, users are required to follow all laws of legality and decency.
2.6 Cyclic Events 2.6.1 Shabbat.com Cyclic events are naturally promoted due to the weekly event of Shabbat. Newsletters and greetings are generated during special occasions such as Passover and Rosh Hashanah. To further stress the cyclic events, every week is going to be different from the last because each week has its own Torah portion, or section from the Old Testament. These are often discussed at the dinner table as modern events and meanings are correlated to old tradition and text. 2.6.2 CouchSurfing.org Cyclic events are often created through local communities of couch surfers. Ambassadors are required to host at least one event per month offline. Through these meetups, members make friendships and close bonds that exist solely offline or that are upheld through online reminders. Lifetime events are also celebrated within the Couch Surfing community. For examples, CSers at the meetup were discussing attending Amy’s babyshower the following week.
2.7 Range of Roles 2.7.1 Shabbat.com
The second most obvious communal aspect of Shabbat.com is the roles that users take on. They either market themselves as hosts or guests, and they specify their family style and level of observance, etcetera. Users also develop a guestbook over time where people who have had interaction with them leave feedback on the quality of the experience. Reputations and statuses are formed, however it is not impossible to evolve and change roles. The access rights of the site differs between members and visitors. Visitors cannot fully use the site; only members can send messages and do extensive people searches. When you create an account, there are some barriers of entry. You have to have two Jewish references and choose an affiliation. Regulars who gain a lot of compliments on their guest books are more desirable hosts and guests. Active members of the Jewish community will also have good references to speak for them. 2.6.2 CouchSurfing.org Members of Couch Surfing can have a number of overlapping roles: hosts, guests, city ambassadors, and forum (or “group”) moderators. City ambassadors help new CS members learn about the local CS community. They do this by actively answering questions, sharing travel tips, and organizing events in their hometowns and places they visit. Group moderators, on the other hand, have almost no responsibilities and powers. Jim, a moderator of the Atlanta forum on the website, says, “basically i[sic] have no real power [...] i can't delete a post myself (unless that changed), so we can scold [people who misbehaves in the forum], or go to administrators to remove a post if it's something really serious.” Most members are simply just host and/or guests. Both have their own pros and cons. Guests gain a free place to stay. Hosts have the opportunity to learn about their city through the eyes of a tourist. Both get to meet new people. Di, an international student from China said that hosts gain “my experience, my perspective of thinking
things and a new friend” as well as “an invite to china[sic].” When asked about being a guest and being a host, Jordan states the following: “I think it’s easier being a guest actually because when I’m a guest, I go and I don’t have to plan anything, I have no expectations, I just go with the flow… and you’ll actually find that [with] most couch surfers, everyone’s go[ing] with the flow because you’re in a new environment and it’s not really up to you to plan anything. Now when you’re a host, at least this is for me, you know, I feel a lot of pressure to plan something and to always have activities to do/ things to do to explore Atlanta. I enjoy it a lot because get to explore Atlanta as a tourist even though I live here. I always learn something new about the city. Um, the last couch surfer that I had wanted to go to Margaret Mead’s house, which is right in Midtown and I didn’t even know who Margaret Mead was even though I pass by this house all the time. He really wanted to check it out because he’s a literature major. We ended up going and I ended up learning something new. It was pretty cool. There’s so many new things in Atlanta that I don’t know about and I’ve been living here for a couple of years. Every person that comes by, they bring something new to the table.” - Jordan 2.8 Real World Integration 2.8.1 Shabbat.com The real and final goal of the website is, of course, the real life interactions that result from the online platform and connections that are built. Once a match is found online, the host and hosted arrange the time and home address so that they can experience a Shabbat dinner together with new people. What makes this possible is the localization of searches and specifications of search preferences.
2.8.2 CouchSurfing.org An inherent aspect of CouchSurfing is real world integration. Its purpose is to promote offline interactions by travelers and locals. “Now i have friends around the country,” says Di, a current couch surfer and traveler says. Jim, who rarely travels or hosts, frequents local CouchSurfing events and says that CS is responsible for “the great expansion of my social circle locally in atlanta [sic].” Jordan, a graduate student in Atlanta, discovered a former classmate from Ohio State living in his neighborhood. The guest that Jordan was hosting was turned down at the last minute by his former classmate. Jordan retells the event below: “The first guy that came was actually a last minute couch request. His host cancelled last minute and really needed a place to stay, so I said he could stay at my place [...] It turned out that the person he was gonna stay with was a girl from Ohio State that I knew. She lived in my neighborhood and I didn’t even know that she lived there ‘cause we were just kinda aquaintances at Ohio State, but we knew each other and... we kinda get connected in that way because he sort of stayed at my place for a couple of nights then stayed at her place for a another night and now, you know, we sort of being more friends and been hanging out ever since then because um... we live so close and we had know idea that we couch surf and... that’s pretty funny.” - Jordan Whether it’s meeting a new person across the country, a group of people in the local area, or someone you have lost touch with, CouchSurfing enables its users to connect with others locally and internationally offline. 2.9 Etiquette
Online interaction should be considered in the same way people are dealt with in real life situations. After all, the sites are precursors for real life interactions. Hosts are opening up their homes to strangers, and guests must respect that. While hosts should do all that they can to make their guests feel welcome, guests should also be as less intrusive as possible. Guests are already receiving free lodging, so they shouldn’t expect to receive free meals and transportation from their hosts. They should also bring along with them a token of gratitude, whether it is flowers, wine, or a home cooked meal. Guests and hosts should also follow through with invitations and plans as both parties have planned accordingly. “The worst one I had, two girls didn’t even show up. I could have given them a negative review, but they were fairly new to Couch Surfing and they seemed nice on their profiles, so I wanted to give them a second chance. I called them and they felt terrible. They made a point to come see me on Sunday even though they were supposed to be with me all weekend. We hung out and had a good time. They just had something come up and they forgot to tell me.”
- Alex
“I think it’s exciting. You meet new people. And most of the people who offers a place to stay really want to make your stay as good as possible. A lot of them do Couch Surfing themselves, so they treat you nice since that’s what they’d expect when they do it.“ - Zach 3. RL self vs. Profile Representation The community feels very real and members seem to be honest about their identities and what their purpose as a Shabbat.com participant is. Asked about the real life presentation versus the profile presentation, most users agree upon them being very similar. It would not be profitable to lie about oneself on either site since the real self would be revealed during the actual
real life encounter. For the same reasons, neither site has a need for using pseudonyms, which adds a sense of security and honesty that may be diluted in other online communities where interactions take place solely online. The interviewees agree that it would be different if you used the site for dating where one might want to glorify their profile. Since the use of the dating feature hopefully leads to a real life meeting, it would not make sense to make up a fictive profile. “I didn't write much on it. I kept it very brief. So I don't think it represents or misrepresents me. All of that really does represent what my life is like, but you definitely can’t get to know me from my profile. And that's not the purpose of the site. I did it as much as a place where someone could judge whether they wanted to join us for Shabbos or not.” - Rabbi G.
4. Third Places In the book “The Great Good Place”, Ray Oldenburg describes a third place as “a simple and playful quiet refuge where people can come and go as they like and where the conversation is the primary activity.” The purpose of a third place is to serve as a home away from home where the feeling of being together is prominent. It is a place to go to besides from home and work where the main activity is to share experiences. Neither of Shabbat.com or Couch Surfing are third places, but rather a gateway for people to find their third place. Users of Shabbat.com and CS all have the same final goal, to meet up in real life. The sites supply necessary information and provide a place to communicate but they merely operate as mediums to real life meeting, even if the reasons to meet differ. Their goals are not to be social networks. Users do not log on to CS or Shabbat.com to “hang out“ or to carry on daily casual conversation with other users. Rather, people use Shabbat.com and CS to establish a contact to
get the opportunity to meet their new connections in real life. There is no exception, all interviewees agree that they all use the site for this purpose. “I basically plan a trip and use Couch Surfing to find a place to stay and locals to hang out in the city. That’s kind of the reason for me to use it.“ -Jordan Couch Surfing seems to be a great place to meet new people in order to find a third place. Another interviewee, Jim, states that his best experience from CS is the great expansion of his social circle locally in Atlanta. He continues describing how one of the best outcomes of CS is a memorable offline CS Christmas party in 2009. Shabbat might not lead to users finding a third place in the same sense. Shabbat is built on different grounds, connecting people through their religious beliefs where a lot of the users already share a third place within their Jewish community. According to Klatzko, he was not sure of how much he wanted the site to be a social network. "It was simply just a resource tool as it developed and became more of a social network." -Klatzko
He reveals that the new version Shabbat.com 3.0 is more of a social network with status updates and an extensive people search, but the main purpose of the site remains, it will still mainly be used as a tool to get in contact with people to attend a Shabbat. Bobby believes that Shabbat.com is very goal oriented, the goal being food. He does not want it to become a social network. He made a comparison to linkedIn, which he only uses to find work. With Shabbat.com it is the same, he only wants to use it to find someone to share a Shabbat with. This is emphasized by another interviewee who claims he would not use the site
unless he needed a place for Shabbat, saying it might be different for others but that he is very practical. Rabbi G. isn’t interested in replacing other social networks with a more limiting one, but for what it is, he is amazed by the site’s capabilites. “I know for me I find it [Shabbat.com] to be an unbelievable resource. It’s unbelievable. It so brings people together, that wherever you are, to find Shabbos or people to find you, its amazing. But I like it as a resource, as a database for people to find me or me to find people. But I’m not interested in another social network. I have Facebook and I have Twitter, so to log on and have to go through all that. I like when I get a message, I get it on my phone, and if I know the person, I’ll call back. More often than not, I’m using it in that sense and not logging in to the website enough. I have enough accounts and places already, so I find that to be a challenge in the site.” - Rabbi G.
5. Reputation System 5.1 Shabbat.com Creating a successful reputation system is a tough, but important task, especially when the goal for the members is to meet up in real life. The reputation system on Shabbat.com is primitive and unscientific. To create a membership it is required to have a minimum of two references. Each user also has a guestbook, which seems to be rarely used. There exist no numerical rating system and it is not required to fill out a host/guest feedback form. Perhaps this is because the site is so new, or that the user base is still too small to warrant an intricate rating system. This could also be because the trust factor in the physical Jewish community is already so strong that it naturally extends to the online community. According to Rabbi Klatzko, a well
developed rating systems is not necessary but could also cause members to be uncomfortable. Hosts open up their houses and are willing to share the Shabbat with family, friends and strangers, it would not be fair to criticize them. Therefore the guestbook is enough for hosts to publicly reflect on their experiences, and the references will create enough security for guests to trust hosts. There is also an entire page on the site devoted to safety expectations and practices. Basically, it is up to the user to do his own research and decide for himself the comfort involved in dealing with other users. A host can decide to call up references and decide on the comfort level they instill in you before agreeing to host a guest. He can read through the guest’s “guestbook” for feedback from their past Shabbos hosts on the site. Another way to get to know a guest is to look at the person’s friends and their history as a guest with other registered hosts, and to contact a previous host if necessary. A host’s contact information will not be released to a potential guest until the guest has been approved. The reference system is a working concept, since it prohibits members to create fake profiles, which otherwise could be easily done on the Internet. Bobby believes it is significant for hosts to be able to look up potential guests through the references. “For guests, I take in the unusual people at shul who might not be asked by anyone else so I wouldn't look at references for guests on the other hand, we no longer host for sleeping, just meals because we had a stranger once who made my wife nervous.” -Bobby 5.2 CouchSurfing.org Couch Surfing has an extended reputation system and there are several ways to make participants feel safe. Members have to create a detailed profile when signing up and are able to
make this very personal by uploading photos, personal information about what they like and what kind of life they live. They also have the option to get verified, which means that their names and location is checked to support their profiles. To support each other, members share information within the community. A user can be vouched for, get detailed friend links, and abuse can be reported. It is up to a user to do as much research as needed to feel comfortable to contact another user. Another feature of Couch Surfing is that a user’s reply rate is shown, which shows how reliable a user is to respond. “References are a great way to see what other people are saying about people before you meet. Vouched For is another great feature. Once someone has been vouched for three times, they can vouch for other people, so that’s another way to tell whether people are legit on the site. I like to see that you’ve been involved with the site.” - Alex
“I’m very particular with the rating, I wouldn’t stay with someone who hasn’t a good reputation. And really it’s not that different from staying in a hotel you don’t know what it’s gonna be like, there you kinda depend on the rating as well.” -Zach “I have things that I look for in their profile. One, I look for their age. I want to make sure that they’re the same age as I am. That right there pretty much says that they’re safe because people our age, college students/recent college students, those people are normally up for anything and they usually don’t have ulterior motives when they’re hosting and I have had really good experiences with them. Also, people leave references on other’s profiles
so I can read different references. Typically people our age sometimes have fewer references because they’re newer on Couch Surfing, but you only need a couple of people to say ‘Hey, I’ve had a good time with this person and they seem pretty legit.’ ” - Jordan “You can search by all sorts of things. I usually search for people by age range because I want someone who will go out and hit the town. I’m not there to see monuments, I’m there to hang out. So I usually search for people in the 20-35 age range. But other than that, I’m not too particular.” - Alex 6. Discussion Shabbat.com, claiming to be the “world’s largest Jewish social network,” and CouchSurfing, promoting itself as the “the world’s largest travel community,” are very popular among their target audiences. Both sites assume that humans are naturally good people and have the desire to reach out and meet other good people. Shabbat.com is a much appreciated site serving its purpose as a tool to find a nice crowd to enjoy the Shabbat with, it really meets the needs of its members. Even if the majority of the interviewees seem to be modest users, they all give the impression of being satisfied with the site. From studying CouchSurfing.org, we believe that Shabbat.com would benefit from having a section on the site where people with similar interests can get to know each other online before meeting face-to-face. "I think it is a fantastic idea and something really needed in this day and age, people travel all over the world all the time, and have a place that can help someone observe their religion anywhere they happen with nice people, and let people open their homes to anyone who he needs, is a really great service. "
-Adam People use Shabbat.com in different ways. Some try to broaden their real life social networks in their hometowns while others want to get out of town and will try to use the opportunity to connect with people in other cities. A few people choose to go via Shabbat.com instead of calling the local synagogue to find a place for Shabbat while out of town. Unfortunately, we were not able to find a member of Shabbat.com who had used the dating feature. The user experience might be different for those who use this, but for finding guests and hosts, the site seems to be good as it is. Only two people suggested a few improvements to the site during the interviews. "I wish they had better notification when you sent messages. I think I tried to message you 2 or 3 times and i didn't know if it worked. Also, some dating sites have whether you are Orthodox, Conservative, etc. That might help." -Bobby “More mobile applicability. Maybe something to create events. But that would only be worthwhile if there was an app also. Maybe a newsfeed. Like tweets about Shabbos� - Rabbi G. None of the interviewees thought that the site should be more like a social network. They all argued that the site fulfills its goals as it is and that they use it for this very particular purpose. "It would be different. And I think it would be a bad idea. " -Bobby The members of Couch Surfing are also very appreciative of the site. The users have a lot of room to develop a personalized profile and choose their own level of activity: to be active on the site even when not looking for a couch to stay on or hosting, to go to real life CS meetings, or to just use the site to actually find somewhere to stay or guests to host. It is a social network to
some people whilst others just use it for its main purpose. Couch Surfing has introduced a new way of travelling which seems to stick and become more and more popular. People are open to try Couch Surfing since it has established itself as a legitimate site with reliable members. The avid user, Di credits CouchSurfing.org for completely changing how he travels. "I got to know a place and its culture faster and better, saved money, had someone to hang out with. It totally changed my way of traveling. Especially traveling alone. I now have friends around the country." -Di Only one of the interviewees provided a specific change on how to improve the site. The interviewee thought that video references would add another level of authenticity and trust among users, because they are harder to falsify. From our personal experiences using the site, we believe that CouchSurfing.org could improve with users having the ability to see when locals are online and send them an instant message. The moderators and ambassadors have very little power, but they do not mind it because most users behave properly. Additionally, the site seems to be under constant development and new features are implemented every now and then. The two sites are similar in many ways, with the common final goal to meet in real life. A big difference is the implementation of references. Both sites have them, but Shabbat.com asks for at least two Jewish references before new users can sign up while the references on CouchSurfing.org are accumulated through actually hosting, surfing, or local meet-ups with other CouchSurfing.org users. Shabbat.com does not need a reputation system that is as intense as Couchsurfing.org’s reputation system because members have a strong tie from the beginning in their religion and Shabbat dinners are social gatherings with many people in attendance. It takes the edge off from the first meeting with a stranger, and especially let them into your home.
"For sleeping arrangements, it's very similar. But with the religious component, it's more like family you just don't want to get the creepy uncle. It's hard to explain, but other Jews are like family and hospitality is a religious duty towards them. For others, it just feels odd." -Bobby It is difficult to agree which site is the better site overall because both are meeting the needs of their users and are still fairly new. (CouchSurfing.org is the older one and it is only nine years old!) Both are designed with certain preconceptions of their audiences, so they may share certain features, but the differences in design benefits the sites.
7. Bibliography Kim, A. (2000, April 6). Nine Design Principles for Community Design. Community Building on the Web : Secret Strategies for Successful Online Communities. Berkeley,CA: Peachpit Press. Retrieved from http://comp.social.gatech.edu/cs4472/ajk.community.analysis.template.doc Oldenburg, R. (1989) The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Community Centersm General Stores, Bars, Hangouts, and How They Get You through the Day. New York: Paragon Books.
Sites studied:
http://www.couchsurfing.org http://www.shabbat.com