Strong Ties, Triadic Closures, and CouchSurfing
CouchSurfing.com is a website that advertises itself as a free online hospitality exchange network. The premise of the company’s model is to incubate a community of travelers who can stay for free at a stranger’s home in exchange for them conversely opening up their own home. The brand motto of CouchSurfers is, “It’s not just about the furniture!”. They emphasize a “network hospitality” Especially The “network hospitality” aspect is interesting since an established hotel brand is not the deciding factor for the choice of accommodations, but instead a mediated offline relationship between two individuals.
This network of CouchSurfing travelers merges the aspects of online and physical interaction. Strangers who meet online and establish that “Weak Tie” is then able to turn into a “Strong-Tie” when they meet up in person. The weak tie is defined as such because of the fact that the strangers would have just made a point of contact. That tie becomes strong when the strangers meet up in person and share mutual experiences while living under the same roof. The creation of the company in turn started the creation of a whole new strong network of individuals connected by their love of travel.
Under this idea of strong and weak ties, the business model of CouchSurfing works so well because of Triadic Closures. Triadic closures come about when two people in a social network have a friend in common and it leads to an increased likelihood that they will become friends at some point. So when an individual uses CouchSurfer and is connected to another stranger, they then create a strong tie to each other after they stay together in a home. This raises the probability that if individuals had a positive experience with their stay they would stay at that person’s residence again. This also means that a mutual friend would likely become friends with both of them.
Mutual friends would arise in this situation when more travelers join the website. After some time, multiple people would have stayed at one individual’s residence. Conversely, the individual would have traveled to multiple other people’s residences. From there, the overlap would occur between different travelers creating the same strong tie from staying with the same hosts all across the world. The more an individual uses the CouchSurfing platform, the more likely they are to run into a mutual strong tie individual and then establish new strong ties between them. Therefore, the growth and connection of people within the platform only strengthens.
Source: https://www.academia.edu/1499598/Editorial_CouchSurfing_and_Network_Hospitality_It_s_not_just_about_the_furniture_