The Lesson I Learned From My First Airbnb Disaster
In August 2011, we were on a shoestring budget having just started IT Central Station. We had no budget for hotels and I had to take a business trip to pitch a potential investor. Airbnb was new at the time and I decided to try it out. Next thing I knew I found myself in a hot basement apartment with no windows that had a noisy toilet and a broken A/C.

Fantastic. This is what I deserved for choosing an apartment with no reviews.
When I explained my situation to the apartment owner, she had the toilet and A/C fixed that same day. She didn’t want the first review to be bad, so she hustled to make amends. It was then that I knew IT Central Station was going to succeed — peer reviews had real power.
Our mission here at IT Central Station is to leverage the power of the crowd for authentic and trustworthy information. Rather than going to vendors, IT Central Station provides a platform for consumers to review enterprise technology. Regular people now have the ability to share their user-experiences and to influence million-dollar buying decisions. Because our platform is neutral and independent, we provide a check on vendors.

The 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer shows that our model is part of a greater trend. Year after year, the public is losing trust in paid experts and in institutions, and relying more on peers, which for the first time is the #1 most trusted source of information. With regards to Brexit, people distrust the European Union. With regards to Uber, people distrust corporate culture. With regards to Trump’s twitter feed, people distrust traditional media outlets. The internet explosion has, in my opinion, catalyzed this distrust — but the internet can also correct it.
The internet — specifically social media — has thrown information at everyone’s fingertips. Now everyone can create and share content. When institutions like governments and companies fall short, the whole world reacts. Since there are so many voices, we’ve created a new social currency to denote value: likes, shares, retweets, and reviews. By tapping into this feedback mechanism, we can rebuild trust online: end-user feedback provides institutional transparency.
What is your company doing to leverage the power of peer content?
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