mip's scan

Couchsurfing!

My wife loves to travel.  When not actually traveling she enjoys reading about travel.  So of course was I intrigued when she said "This is a cool website."  Travel and technology!  The site in question is Couchsurfing.com which in their own words is

CouchSurfing.com helps you make connections worldwide. You can use the network to meet people and then go and surf other members' couches! When you surf a couch, you are a guest at someone's house. They will provide you with some sort of accommodation, a penthouse apartment or maybe a back yard to pitch your tent in. Stays can be as short as a cup of coffee, a night or two, or even a few months or more. When you offer your couch, you have complete control of who visits. The possibilities are endless and completely up to you.

I liked this from a tech perspective because it demonstrates the power of social networks.  Is it the way to plan a family vacation?  No.  But it feels a niche and it allows for a social network around common interest to evolve.  With over 43,000 couchsurfers and over 17,000 successful surfs it would seem that this type of social network does interest people.  In my book I like - better to be a couchsurfer than a couch potatoe!

3M Video Downloads and Counting

Still think that the portable video market for devices like the PSP and the iPod are a passing fad?  Apple has just announced that it has sold 3 million downloads since it launched this service in iTunes 55 days ago.  I read this in The Register and it's mind blowing if you think of it.

That translates into over 54,545 downloads a day, a 3.6 per cent gain on the 52,632 downloads a day average Apple established during the 19 days from 12 October it took to serve up ITMS' first 1m downloads.

It'll be interesting to see how this grows over the next 6 months and more importantly, how the download rates will be in the various other iTune stores in other countries.  Couple that with the additional content producers like NBC who will continue to jump on board and this is going to be a runaway successs.

And if you're reading this Steve Jobs...when are you going to make this available in Canada!