New Orleans and travel plans

I have been revisited by emotions attached to a scene

in New Orleans, this past February. To address this, I did a wee homemade job of video editing...I really do need to find a good program to make this a nicer job, but in the meantime, I am using 'Windows MovieMaker'.










Here is the entire parade video. I wanna say too...if you want to have a great time...geeezus...come to New Orleans for Mardi Gras.










We are getting ready to go off again..........










If you are a traveler, you might be interested in this site.  www.airbnb.com

We have used it three times now...you enter your destination city information and dates and there you are. People that have non-traditional accommodations to rent have listed their places with AIRBNB and you get to browse about. I have no idea if the plan works well for the owners, but for renters such as ourselves, it has been a very positive experience. We stayed in a great spot in NYC last November, and again in New Orleans in February of this year and now we are off to California for two weeks.




I pulled this info from Wiki, in order to present the best possible information.


Airbnb is an online service that matches people seeking vacation rentals and other short-term accommodations with those with rooms to rent, generally private parties that are not professional hoteliers. The site was founded in October 2007 by Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia. In July 2012, the company had over 200,000 listings in 26,000 cities and 192 countries. Listings include private rooms, entire apartments, castles, boats, manors, tree houses, tipis, igloos, private islands and other properties.^[1]

Contents 1 History 2 Business model 3 Controversy 4 Reception 5 See also 6 References 7 External links

History

In 2007, Chesky and Gebbia moved to San Francisco. The Industrial Design Society of America was holding its yearly design conference at that time, and hotels were sold out.^[2][3] The two, who were unable to pay their rent, offered part of their loft as accommodations.^[4]
The company was incubated by the Y Combinator in January 2009.^[5] The initial name of the website was Airbedandbreakfast.com, but it was shortened to Airbnb.com in March 2009. At this time the site's offerings expanded from just shared spaces to apartments, whole houses and other properties.^[5] In June 2010, the founders' loft was still being used as an office. To make room for employees and to study the Airbnb product, Chesky gave up his bedroom and lived through the Airbnb service until the company moved into its first office space.^[6]
The company continued to experience rapid growth through the year and in November 2010 raised $7.2 million in Series A funding from Greylock Partners and Sequoia Capital, and announced that out of 700,000 nights booked, 80% had occurred in the past six months.^[7] By February 24, 2011, one million had been booked through Airbnb and revenue from the month prior had increased by 65 percent increase.^[8] On May 25, 2011, actor and partner at A-Grade Investments, Ashton Kutcher, announced a significant investment in the company and his role as a strategic brand adviser for the company.^[9] The company expanded internationally by purchasing Accoleo, a German clone of the site.^[10][11] In July 2011, the company raised an additional $112 million at a $1 billion valuation.^[12]
The company is well known for its freewheeling company culture, which has been praised by Business Insider and Wall Street Journal. For instance, Airbnb employees wear hoodies to press conferences and business meetings.^[13][14] Gebbia has said that, "Airbnb is like a really fun school where you get paid."^[14]

Business model

The listings on Airbnb vary from $10 a night for a futon in Brooklyn to $5,000 a night for a 6,500-square-foot (600 m²) modern vacation mansion in Squaw Valley, California.^[15] In late June 2011, an incident with a booked apartment being burgled and heavily vandalized by the renter^[16] led AirBnB to offering $50,000 guarantee for landlords, a 24-hour customer-service hotline, and an in-house team devoted to investigating suspicious activity.^[17].

Controversy

Airbnb has also been criticized for spamming Craigslist users in addition to safety concerns.^[18] In June 2011 a user identified as "EJ" reported that her home was robbed and vandalized.^[19][20] In August 2011 Airbnb issued an "unconditional" apology for failing to treat users properly after a house was ransacked.^[21] Airbnb co-founder Nathan Blecharczyk was formerly listed as a known spammer.^[22]

Reception

Airbnb has been described as a "disruptive" innovation for the Hotel Industry.^[23] It has been praised by Paul Graham (co-founder of Y-Combinator, Airbnb's incubator),^[24] The Wall Street Journal,^[25] and the The Daily Telegraph.^[26] Airbnb has been favorably compared with Craigslist, HomeAway, Flipkey, World Escape and Groupon, other sites that provide spur-of-the-moment rentals.^[27] Airbnb was awarded the "breakout app" at the 2011 South by Southwest conference.^[28] Along with Quora and Dropbox, Airbnb has been named among the next generation of multibillion dollar start-ups by the The New York Times.^[29] Following Airbnb, other services such as Getaround, Vayable, Guidehop, myTaskAngel and Taskrabbit launched with a similar model.^[30] New York's state legislature passed a law in July 2010 making it illegal to rent out Class A residential space for less than 30 days. However, the bill's sponsor, State Senator Liz Krueger said Airbnb and its competitors are not the law's target.^[15]