Airbnb works

When my wife and I were searching for a weekend getaway to host our family friends from Korea, we searched Priceline and Travelocity to find good last minute hotel deals.  Because there were two families traveling, we had to look for suite with two rooms.  We quickly realized that there wasn't a site where we could search suite with multiple rooms.

That's when I suggested that we tried Airbnb.  We set our location, price range and date range, and hit search.  A few moments later we were able to find several cabins that matched our search criteria.  After a couple of email exchanges with one of the owners, and I must say that it worked out very well.

We were able to our latest minute trip out to Lake Tahoe, and had fun time getting away for the weekend.  Airbnb works.

Source: http://images.fastcompany.com

Three questions to consider when building cross network utility

After reading Fred Wilson's post Cross Network Utility and Networks, I spent a few minutes thinking about what makes a social network not a cross network utility.  This post resonated with me because I have been working on cross network utility.  When we started, it seemed clear to me that we were not in business of building a new social network.  But as I started drilling in deeper into how to make our service more compelling, I found it difficult to just focus on building cross network utility and say no to creating a new social network.

I think the reason is a simple one.  If a cross network utility is serving a niche user segment, users want to share ideas and data with each other in a way that benefits everyone.  In other words, users see the win-win situation from collaborating with others.

One way to solve this problem is not
to create social profile on all social networks
(Image from justbeingseriouslysocial.com)

When users are logging in to a site and the site is closely integrated with social networks (such as cross network utility), they expect to share information, send messages and leave comments for their group members to see within the site, not in other social networks that it integrates with.

This makes perfect sense when you break down the reasons of why anyone might use a new site.  When user signs up for a new site, there are three main reasons why users decide to become a fan of the site.