Airbnb and Mayor Bloomberg link up, open home renters’ doors to hurricane victims

Two weeks after Hurricane Sandy, a nor'easter heads toward New York City. Luckily, Airbnb and the Big Apple joined hands to offer free shelter to those displaced.

When Airbnb sent out an email two weeks ago encouraging renters to offer rooms at a discounted rate to help Hurricane Sandy victims, I applauded the startup’s efforts at giving back to the community. Today, as a nor’easter heads back to the tri-state area even though some victims are still without power or have been evacuated from their homes, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced a collaboration with Airbnb, helping the startup promote the word on free housing for those who need it the most.

Whether you’re an interested renter or in need of shelter, the shortcut URL of Airbnb.com/sandy can take you to the available homes in the NYC vicinity. Every listing under the section is entirely free of charge; Airbnb makes no profit off the listings, and home seekers still have full access to filter search results by neighborhood, amenities, and room type. Luckily, as the number of rooms available decrease after bookings, more renters are offering their homes to the site. When I began this post, 179 homes were available. Last I checked, there are 205.

There’s no word from Airbnb or the mayor’s office on how long this deal lasts, but if you’re seeking shelter or know someone who is, you can find everything from a free bedroom to airbeds and couches. Whatever humble abodes renters can offer, it will sure beat the snow that’s already descended upon New York City. 

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

WeHostels takes on the space between CouchSurfing and Airbnb

Travel app WeHostels has all the app finesse of Airbnb without the high prices. The startup officially launches to target the last-minute backpacking crowd.

Today WeHostels is announcing its public launch, pivoting from its beginnings as Inbed.me. The currently mobile-only app is targeting the space between CouchSurfing and Airbnb — the world of cheap hotel and hostel bookings. The startup is still riding its $1.2 million raised this past spring, and silently added 30,000 downloads in the past three weeks.

Before the WeHostels mobile app, the service existed as Web client Inbed.me – but surprise, we users all have our minds in the gutter and interpreted the name in the most inappropriate way possible. Though there’s been a name change, the concept more or less remains the same: Connect to Facebook and find last-minute affordable last-minute accommodations on-the-go. It’s not all utility, however, and the social link gives you options to connect with other guests so you can, as WeHostels puts it, make friends en route before you even get to your destination.

Of course, the other big switch-up would be that fact that WeHostels is entirely ditching the desktop in favor of a mobile-approach. According to the team, it was a pure logistics decision when they saw traffic from smartphones growing 10 times faster than their Web app.

“We decided to focus only in mobile because it’s a fascinating new arena that requires a very unique set of skills in terms of product design and distribution,” says co-founder Diego Saez-Gil. “By focusing only in mobile, we’re forcing ourselves to become experts on it, and therefore we can outperform any team in any big company working on it.”

Despite that focus, WeHostels sees beyond the smartphone. “In the future we plan to develop solutions for all devices and platforms – we will need to be ubiquitous,” Saez-Gil tells me. “But we prefer to start on the one platform where the new ways of interacting with the Web are happening.”

The fast and quiet growth that WeHostels experiencd over the last few weeks saw the userbase grow largely in the United States, with Europe coming in second, and from there travelers in South America and Australia getting on board with the network. The current version of WeHostels has 80 cities available, but new partnerships with Hostelworld and Expedia will hugely increase those options worldwide.

“We will keep growing in terms of cities and accommodations, and we will develop for other devices,” says Saez-Gil, who mentions that iPad and Android are up next. “In the longer future we consider expanding to other verticals in the travel space and becoming the one-stop-shop where young travelers plan and book their trips from mobile devices.” 

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com