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CouchSurfing Deletes Itself, Shuts Down

techcrunch.com — "This is just ridiculous. Three year old CouchSurfing, a beloved service used by some 90,000 members, had multiple database crashes and critical parts of the software and data were irretrievably lost. They are not rebuilding the service. They literally put themselves out of business."

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  • morbid88, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9This is absolutely terrible.
    I'm not sure if someone from within the community will try to rebuild -- maybe using CivicSpace on Drupal?
    but I'm sure packs of members wills tart gravitating to alternate services like hospitality club or something...
    Is there anybody out there?
    • texpundit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+20I'm a Drupal developer and I'll tell you first hand that CivicSpace is ass. Big, gaping, Goatse ass.

      I've had nothing but problems with it. Also, you don't NEED CivicSpace unless you want to use CiviCRM. Even then, you're better off just installing Drupal and then installing CiviCRM manually with it. That's the only way I've gotten it to work.

      If you want to build a site like this on Drupal, just go to drupal.org and download all the social networking modules (gojoingo, organic groups, buddylist, etc) and do it the right way. Stay away from CivicSpace.
    • ironchief, on 10/12/2007, -8/+3Maybe the Digg community could help rebuild his site from the ground up and get it working again. Sort of a Digg service project. Let's use our collective wisdom to aid the greater good! Hmm an irc channel would be a good place to start.
    • decay, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3For those that don't know what couch surfing is. (I didn't)

      Membership in the organization is free and is obtained simply by registering on the website. The core activity of the organization is exchange of accommodation. Acting as a host, a member offers the possibility of accommodation at his or her leisure; it is not required, but obviously it is encouraged. Acting as a surfer (guest), a traveller may search for and request accommodation at his or her destination. Accommodation is entirely consensual between the host and surfer, and the duration, nature, and terms of the surfer's stay are generally worked out in advance to the convenience of both parties. It is also expected to be free; no monetary exchange takes place except under certain circumstances (e.g. the surfer may compensate the host for food).

      Source: Wikipedia
  • krugerpr0n, on 10/12/2007, -8/+23That must suck but 3 years and no decent back-up bad idea!

    pitty though looked to have been a very interesting site
    • acrophoric, on 10/12/2007, -31/+11Why dont you get off your high horse and RTFA instead?

      "This crash happened at a particularly vulnerable time, in a transition between two back-up methods. If the crash had happened a week ago, or next week, we would have had a different outcome."
    • pseudojd, on 10/12/2007, -2/+30BS! You rotate backups out of service as long as you are backing up so this doesn't happen. every week or month, you take a tape out and it goes off site forever... that's all there is to it. EVERY big company does this. And you gotta do restores every once in a while... they asked for this.
    • neoform, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14@acrophoric

      you're an idiot.
      anyone that does proper backing up will not destroy an old backup until a new backup system has been put into place and is functioning perfectly. these guys just dropped the ball hard.
    • morbid88, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14I think people here are missing a fundamental aspect of what CouchSurfing was.
      There WAS no big company. Casey did a substantial amount of the work while he was on the road, USING the website's own service.
      This wasn't a money-making machine. It was a non-profit organisation. An anarchistic social experiment that took off faster and higher than anyone really expected it to. The BEAUTY of it was that it was small.
      I don't know how it happened, and apparently even Casey states that it was avoidable.
      We users will naturally gravitate to the other services, and maybe some of us will band together to form a new one. Who knows.
      I would certainly be interested.
    • pseudojd, on 10/12/2007, -20/+7Backups don't cost a thing. Having money is not a prerequisite to being smart.
    • superkendall, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Being small does not mean you can't do real backups. In fact it's more important, and it's not hard to always keep three copies of something going at once... it's just crazy to do any backup directly over your only existing backup.
    • SniperX, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8@pseudojd

      You've obviously never implemented a backup solution. It most certainly does cost money. Granted, what you're backing up has a lot to do with the price, as well as the back up method used. But tapes, hard drives, dvds all cost money, so does *good* back up software.

      Though obviously that wasn't the case here, they were actively backing up it sounds like, and the problem lies in how they executed the backup policy.
    • jonashwing, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3@SniperX

      ummm, CVS? or save it to your personal computer if you have to.
    • pseudojd, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1yes it does cost 'money' but you can get 3 pen drives for under a hundred bucks... just keep swapping them....
    • bndocksnt, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5@pseudojd "yes it does cost 'money' but you can get 3 pen drives for under a hundred bucks... just keep swapping them...."

      Are you actually suggesting that somebody back-up a website with Flash memory? No, I must have been mistaken, there is no way that anybody could offer up such a naive solution. Just so everybody is on the same page here, Flash memory is volatile stuff. I have replaced my thumb drive a couple of times just in the last year. They are NOT a back-up storage solution for anybody but a high school student who wants a good place to hide his (or her :) porn.
    • pseudojd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Obviously not the best scenario!!! but better than finding a new job?! YES!
  • endtime, on 10/12/2007, -5/+20"It feels to me like this loss of CouchSurfing is how it's meant to be. This crash is like a sign from the universe. "

    It sucks that that happened and I feel bad for the guy, but that's kind of a copout.
    • dclowd9901, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Seriously. I feel like he's shirking the responsibility of rebuilding this site. He's already got the userbase. All he has to do is give them something to input. I think he is just using this crash as an excuse to move on with other things in his life. His letter even states that he has foregone some opportunities for himself because of this project.
    • valour, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Sometimes running a site can be like a job that you never get a vacation from. Or when you do take a vacation, the server goes down or something else happens. Enough disasters like that make you wish you could sell the site, or shut it down and do something else, but you can't because you have an obligation to your users/readers/customers. So when something like this happens where the site is wiped out, it's tempting to think that it's more of a blessing than a curse. You're free to do something else with your life -- your WHOLE life, not just the few hours you can trust the site to go without supervision.
  • partsguy74, on 10/12/2007, -5/+24Dugg just for the title...
    • titlesaysitall, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I thought it was going to say something about couch potatos surfing the web from their TV delete their own civilization or something.
  • Seumas, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Wow. Backing up a database is usually a single command line, can be run as a cronjob, rsynced remotely, only takes a few minutes to generate and compress and in systems like PostgreSQL can be done live without seriously impacting user interaction.

    There's not really any excuse here unless these guys had a decent backup system and that _also_ failed.
    • theone3, on 10/12/2007, -5/+81Ode to Couchsurfing:
      Yesterday,
      All those backups seemed a waste of pay.
      Now my database has gone away.
      Oh I believe in yesterday.

      Suddenly,
      There's not half the files there used to be,
      And there's a milestone hanging over me
      The system crashed so suddenly.

      I pushed something wrong
      What it was I could not say.
      Now all my data's gone and I long for yesterday-ay-ay-ay.

      Yesterday,
      Need for backup seemed so far away.
      Seemed my data were all here to stay,
      Now I believe in yesterday.
    • dawgma, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4Beautiful, theone. Very apt.
    • troon, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2@theone: plagarized, but well spotted.
    • theone3, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2?.. I thought it was a classic, like AYB.
    • javierror, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4for great justice!
  • EmmEff, on 10/12/2007, -2/+20What company doesn't have a good backup plan that's been around for 3 years?
    • SteelChicken, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10ones that dont make enough money to hire decent people and put in place good processes
      or ones that dont really care enough to do it

      i doubt this was a huge money making enterprise
    • Hayl, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11One that isn't making money and wants to go out of business? :P
    • Seumas, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Maybe they're a small time operation that didn't so much hire an admin as pay a guy hourly to do some work here and there as a contractor.

      Sometimes what seems like a full fledged, supported, commercial business is just a guy running a site as a hobby out of his own expenses and resources and free time. People are constantly emailing me and talking to me as if the site I run is some big company or something.. the truth is, it's just me, my cash, my hardware, my colo'd bandwidth... I can't afford a real backup solution, so I have to cron all the backup processes and rsync them remotely many times a day (2000 miles away).

      Now, if I can do that they should be able to as well. Hell, I still have every piece of data from everything on my site dating back to 1998, including about 1,500,000 uploaded photos (for user auctions, etc). The only time I ran into a problem was when I had a catastrophic hardware failure where both PSUs in the redundant N+1 PSU system died in a short period of time AND one of the drives in the RAID5 crapped out. I mis-timed a move over to another box and lost about 8 hours worth of data... but 8 hours and 8 years (or 3 years in this CouchSurfer instance) is a world apart.
    • breakneckridge, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Still, if he really put as much work and love into this project as he said then there really is no excuse for going 3 whole years without making 1 full complete backup and stashing it at a friends house.
    • twollamalove, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@emmeff

      My guess would be lots. I'm sure that Couch Surfing thought they had everything under control. In many cases, it seems "DBAs" just fake it until they make it. Or, in this case, fake it until they break it.
    • nofxjunkee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"ones that dont make enough money to hire decent people and put in place good processes
      or ones that dont really care enough to do it

      i doubt this was a huge money making enterprise"

      I run www.nofxwiki.net , a one-man show because it's a small site and doesn't require more people (except a designer, heh). Anyway I have the DBs and mail backed up nightly. My htdocs are all kept in subversion, which is stored at home and co'd on the server. The svn repo gets backup up w/ everything else at home, which includes the DB & mail backups which are rsync'd nightly (I just sync the whole backup dir). So I have everything in 3 places or so (svn stuff more), on 3 separate disks in 2 physical locations (Missouri and British Columbia). And it's just me, so it's a BS excuse to say they didn't have the money/rsources.

      Any developer can certainly keep at least one backup. Even if it's not off-site.
  • kbeeveer46, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Did they just recently hire admins to do this and they ***** it up or did they mean the admins they hired at the beginning haven't been doing their job all along?

    "The database administrators we hired made two critical mistakes. First, we had a major, avoidable hard drive crash. Secondly, the incremental back-ups weren’t executed in the correct manner, and twelve of our most important data files didn’t survive."

    • raid517, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10I think he hired these people recently to take some of the stress he was feeling off of himself - and these people simply proved to be incompetent.

      It sounds also like the guy was looking for an out. All that stuff about 'putting his life on hold', 'sacrificing his health' and 'suspending his own wander lust and other interests for the sake of the site.' sounds like a bigger factor more than anything else.

      People who build large successful sites like this - but which don't make a lot of money from them, often don't live very normal lives - and this can be quite emotionally damaging at times.

      I think that you need to get lucky and come up with a formula as successful as diggs, where you can sit back and just watch the greenbacks roll in, before it really becomes possible for you to relax.

      But it is often very hard work.
    • SilentBobSC, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Digg was hardly sit back and watch the money roll in, the popularity of the site blew up when it first went online and if it weren't for the VC that came their way, Digg was looking at alot of out of pocket expenses for bandwitdth, hosting and server costs since the original PHP didn't scale nearly as elegantly as was needed.
    • Life2Short, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Could someone define "avoidable hard disk crash?" The only thing I can picture here is bouncing the server up-and-down on your knee. Short of deliberately setting out to damage the hard drive, in what sense are disk crashes avoidable?
    • deodand, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Sounds like he hired some guy who was sleeping on his couch.
    • glwtta, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Life2Short: I can think of two things: a) reasonably modern drives will tell you they are failing ahead of time, enough so that you can usually save the data. or b) properly configured storage for a database server should be able to withstand a disk failure, I guess that doesn't make the crash itself "avoidable", but it's consequences. Who knows, maybe they had a drive fail in a RAID5 and decided to run it degraded for a few days until they finish their migration, because "what could possibly happen in the next day or so?"
  • naughtymonkey69, on 10/12/2007, -8/+6Was it some sort of internet TV guide or something? I never heard of it before.
    • Picard102, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5From what I can tell it's a way for people to crash on other people's couch while their traveling. Like a free hostel.
    • el_jefe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5The article explains it, but you have to read it.
    • 2damntall, on 10/12/2007, -13/+2Actually, the article doesn't say anything about the service, just its downfall. Thanks for playing though.
    • angelp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7@2damntall - Actually, the article stated this, smartass:

      "CouchSurfing allowed people to register their home and offer free accomodation to travelers."

    • JacobR, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Thanks for playing though!
  • rdez6173, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I don't understand how there's *no* backup. Even with a substandard backup procedure, you'll usually have a month/year old backup lying around _somewhere_ that can act as a decent starting point for a rebuild. This is especially true for a ~3 year old service.

    I can empathize, however, I know the feeling when you realize just how bad the situation is; it usually results in vomiting on oneself ;)
  • Picard102, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6What the hell? I could have used this service multiple times if I had known about it.
    • gamekid, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Same here.

      Instead, [insert Darth Vader exclamation of disapproval from Star Wars Episode III]
  • Angostura, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7The guy couldn't be arsed to continue, the database failure was a convenient excuse to give up. Simple as that.
    • szembek, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2True. Building a website doesn't take that much effort. So people might have to sign up again.
  • CarlHaynes, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Dam whish i had known about the site before it died I would have signed up
    • kvasinka, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Try similar services like www.hospitalityclub.org (the biggest one), stay4free.com, etc.. Couchsurfing was a good service, but problably not the best one and definitelly not the biggest one, although it was rising quickly in past few months.
  • neoian, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Ya know this wouldn't be that hard to do using drupal. From what it sounds like people just opt in or out for having people stay in their house. And when someone is at their house they could set their status to someones here. Flexinode and 3 radio buttons. An address field, PM's, and a forum would so the trick.... I guess.
  • cheersrazer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4The vibe i got from the e-mail is that the owner wanted to move on from couchsurfing.com and this was a good opportunity to do so. I used couchsurfing and was planning to use it again during my trip to Europe later this year, the site had a nice philosophy and was a great community. It will be sadly missed by many.

    If anyone knows of any alternatives could you please post them in a comment.
    • kvasinka, on 10/12/2007, -0/+81. www.hospitalityclub.org
      2. www.globalfreeloaders.com
      3. www.stay4free.com
      4. www.travelhoo.com
      I have been member of all 5 including couchsurfing for several years so I put them in order according to database size, ease of use and additional services (couchsurfing used to be no. 2 for me, from now, the hospitalityclub.org is way ahead of everyone else)
  • treborna, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Well, to their credit, they were presumably in the process of migrating to a new, better backup system. Their intentions were good. Still, who relies on ONE backup system? Let this be a lesson to all readers. Use at least two independent backup systems. Rotate backup volumes so that you retain daily, weekly and monthly copies. Even if you are small, you can afford a USB hard drive as a second or third backup system and there are many options for free Internet backup.
  • RareSaturn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12After reading this I just backed up my database
  • danielf30, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1OFF TOPIC - sort of it's about backups in general.

    Yeah most hosting companies, yes even the big ones, do not really do backups. If they do it's not often enough and the backup are not properly tested. So if you have a site hosted somewhere, even if your hosting company says they back it up, do yourself a favor and make your own, it's not that hard.
  • jschrab, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The author of "Computer-Related Risks" (a compilation of risks and losses due to computing), Peter Neumann, will no doubt add this to the Risks Digest (re: Forum On Risks To The Public In Computers And Related Systems)

    Ow.
  • ElectroOverlord, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I just hosted a guy from Ireland that came to Detroit for the Detroit Electronic Music Festival. Was a really cool service and it sucks that its gone. I really wanted to couchsurf to Belgium next year. R.I.P.
  • fluidfoundation, on 10/12/2007, -8/+1DOOOOOH'ETHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
  • vhold, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4To not have -anything-, not even some old version of the application, is just too strange. I can't help but think there is more to this.
  • hakz, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4what is couchsurfing?
    • bking, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Couchsurfing was a free service that allowed you to take in travelers coming to your area, or find a place to stay when you travel. When you register, you put down notes about your living conditions (no roommates, have car, always have couch, flexible schedule etc.) and people would be able to search for people in the area that they are going to that meet their criteria. There was a feedback system, as well as a few different tiers of identity verification, for your safety. It was an amazing service that did a lot of good.
  • RossPatterson, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2What's with all this moaning and criticism? Regardless of how much value you think CouchSurfing.Com provided, it was a *FREE* service with apparently 90,000 registered *FREELOADERS*. If they didn't think it was worh his time, effort and money to provide reliable, tested backups, well ... their users still got everything they paid for, and more.
  • jessecurry, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I should have moved on my idea, I thought of the couch surfing site 5 years ago due to the steady stream of "man on the couch" that my home experienced... but I never even tried to get the domain... oh well, maybe the market is open agian
  • whisperedlie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15www.inviteaserialkillertosleeponyourcouch.com
    • pumacub, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Exactly.
    • roosh4, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yeah you're right. Better lock yourself up in the basemenet and cease interaction with all humans.
  • SinnopS, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I peronaly knew one of the co-founders (Leo) and worked with him for over a year at a web firm. Oh man was he a crazy guy and was passionate about CS.

    For those that dont know, Couchsurfing connected its members with places to stay, mostly crashing on another persons couch. So if you wanted to say visit California, u find someone there and stay at their place for free. So its great if you are say backpacking across eurpoe or something and trying to do it on the cheap.
  • crazyjeff0, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1/tear
  • ekkalvia, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Arson 2.0?
  • miget78, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0that does suck. I know there were going to upgrade to something else before the crash, that was one of the things they talked about at the collective at couchsurfing
  • nuvem, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1I guess the real lesson here is this:

    If you are going to hire a DBA, make sure you have them sign a contract that will hold them legally responsible for any losses, and do your own occasional backups just in case. That way, not only can you sue the ***** out of them, but you don't have to abandon your business because you can't pull together the will to start from scratch again.
    • merreborn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2That's totally insane. No one would ever take that job.

      Hire a competent DBA. Make sure that at *any* given time, you're able to recover from backup. Do test recoveries regularly.

      If you have to second guess your DBA, and 'make your own backups', you need to hire someone else.
    • Ithaycu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0There was nothing to be accountable for given the total lack of revenue from the service. Not sure what the legal implications would be if this went to trial.
  • miget78, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1they should try to rebuild it. i know people who use couchsufring would use it again .
  • dupswapdrop, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Hey in the 80's I worked for a big company that did backups of their mainframe each and every day.
    Then they took them out to an unlocked shed behind the parking lot and piled them up without labels.
    One day the mainframe crashed hard, go get the backups they all shouted.
    Oops the lawn care crew had them dumped in the trash because they needed the shed.
    Too bad so sad.
    Oh and now they are based in Mexico!
  • diligent1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I guess his week old back up just isn't good enough eh?
    Sounds like a sorry excuse to quit. He obviously wanted to give it up.
  • Urusai, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"Avoidable" hard drive crash? What, was it swinging from a SATA cable 5 feet off of the cold hard floor? Was SMART freaking out? Did they buy Western Digital or Hitachi? Was the HDD located next to a degausser with a big button that said "PRESS FOR FREE CANDY"?
    • pumacub, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It was the last one...

      Mmmmmmm... Candy.
  • turbodiesel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Waybackmachine link:
    http://web.archive.org/web/20050401092301/http://www.couchsurfing.com/

    • redfan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Sad for a site to just... "disappear". I remember an article a while back talking about an upcoming "digital dark age" as data previously stored on volatile forms of storage goes away, either via users or some sort of disaster (crash, natural disaster, war, etc.).
  • roostermint, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I wouldnt be too hard on this guy. I myself and I know many others do not make backups of their sites.You say you will do it but you are so busy with other things you just keep putting it off. I would even go as far to say its maybe even a mental illness or people who do not plan well.

    Oh and yeah my gramar sucks but dont worry i dont punish the world with my grammar on my sites.
  • roostermint, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I do do know i spelled grammar wrong but it wont let me edit it.
  • smedstadc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0My database professor always told us how paranoid we should be about our backups and our data. She used to give stories like this as examples. (Avoidable mistakes that RUIN EVERYTHING) This is one giant black mark on the two DBA's responsible. They're gonna have a helluva time finding new work.
  • szembek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Sooner or later somebody's going to use one of these services and get chopped up and eaten, the mainstream media will love it!!!!
  • jcronkhite, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This is really sad and a lesson to all of the managers out there who are so brilliant as to think that a RAID volume will be "fine". *****. To all you IT managers who think you don't need a backup: WHO ARE YOU FOOLING? YOUR JOB IS AT RISK! Do yourselves and your companies and customers a favor; implement a backup solution and have a disaster recovery plan. It could literally save your ass.
  • LeegleechN, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1And that, my friends, is why you always have a good, tested, current backup at _all_ times.
  • khrome, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I, for one, would be interested to know if anyone contacted him about accessing the DB info. Nothing seems like a bigger honeypot than a nationwide 'transient' databse to data aggrigators, and statistical analysis guys.
  • eatsushi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I bet if he used the background music from that bootlegged scientology video, he and others would be motivated to put the site back up :)
  • ohcoaster, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1sombody set up us the bomb.
  • mmxtreme, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Sad, sad story. I'm hoping someone wil recreate such a community again. Maybe newer, fresher UI (tagging, photos etc...) AND better database backups scripts ! :-p
  • almostpositive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Are there any girls out there that used (or would have used) the service? What do you think about the higher risk to women to travel alone and stay with strangers?
  • u8myfoood, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2RIP couchsurfing...
  • miget78, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0yes there were a lot of girls that did used the site. The travellers have diffrent idea about that that most of the people do.
    • tarion, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I'm not a girl, but as I'm a quite active member in CS and Hospitalityclub, I can tell you so much: out of my 40-50 guests, there were less than 10 boys. I met many girls in both clubs and heard no bad experiences - girls that had bad experiences had them for example while hitchhiking. But that also applies for guys. What both men and girls experience is dating- and msn-spam, but in that case, there's a mail to the admin (warning or kicking the member) or the ignore-checkbox.
      Problems in those travelling-communities don't arise out of the community but are real world problems, which are reflected in the community - and that's something quite normal and it would be hypocritical to expect a perfect world within a not perfect world...
      And honestly: with HC and CS I made experiences in the last 12 months, I never will forget. It changed my life, the way I look at the world and other people - i don't know, if this will last forever. But right now, it's the best what happened to me (except for meeting this one certain girl and the new vodka-vanilla/applejuice-cocktail, hrrrrrmmmm)
  • tarion, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0For all you CS-Members: there's a CS-Refugee-Forum on Hospitalityclub.org, so incase you are travelling and aren't in contact with your hosts, or if you're a host and looking for your missing guests, post to the forum (HC-Login needed).
    Also, there's still the CS-Chat and the CS-Board:
    http://chat.couchsurfing.com
    http://couchsurfing.hyperboards.com.

    Damn, that's really a bad, bad thing. Hope, Casey and the Volunteers will manage to set up something...
  • komputes, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I can't beleived it happened. At first it just redirected me to sitedown.couchsurfing.com, which is a site I had gotten used to. The next time I tried it, I got a letter from the admin saying that the site was down, in fact dead. I'm used to backing up all my data and I think it's very important if you have databases on a web site. the only problem is that CS did not just host information, it hosted photos as well as forums, which makes the backup substantialy larger. But when having a web site isn't it important to have the web site itself backed up and have the database backed up every week or so - seperately? I recommended that they start again from scratch and that all the users register again, but then there would be the issue of people who do not log on every day seeing that their login did not work and their username was taken by somebody else, followed by freaking out and mass mailings to the admin.

    It is sad, it is really sad that a web site i cherished died like that with all my information and contacts stuck in it (apart from the ones I have on msn). As a world traveller I counted on this website to be a positive tool in meeting people and finding accomodation.

    Until it comes back online resurected into v 2.0, if that ever happens, there are these sites that will see a large migration of users in the next few weeks:

    http://www.hospitalityclub.org (takes about 2 weeks to register - 156 thousand users looks promissing, but it's doesnt have the interface CouchSurfing had, a boo hoo hoo! ugly ugly site)
    http://www.globalfreeloaders.com (which seems to just have gotten hacked, wtf? WWW.ARBITRAGE-PROFITS.COM? What the #@$% is this? - see cached google version for actual page.)
    http://www.stay4free.com (who just re-did their site).

    Till next time, keep on digg...in'
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