Couch Surfers Wipe Out

In an unfortunate turn of events, thousands of users of the site, Couchsurfing.com are left with no place to crash for the night. Couchsurfing.com is similar to Myspace.com and Friendster.com in that it links up members in a community that allows each member the opportunity to view each other’s pictures, personal bio, and other information. The members then can meet up by offering places to stay if someone happens to be passing through.
Unfortunately for the members of Couchsurfing.com, the server crashed last week, leaving the minimal staff of the site to scramble to recover member information. Sadly, they will likely be unable to recover the bulk of the information, and are now relying on donations to get the site up and running. I think it’s just amazing to see how people come to rely on a social network such as this. Also, I think it’s somewhat foolish to completely rely on a network of people that hop from couch to couch to serve as providers of adequate housing, but I’ve also never hitchhiked or hopped a train.

"Others are using the message boards to continue their journeys across the
world. Low Kok-Chang, my Malaysian host, had been planning a trip to Hong Kong, but lost the contact information of his would-be hosts when the site crashed. He's now joined a less polished website, Hospitality Club, to re-plan his
trip."

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,71306-0.html?tw=wn_technology_internet_7