What We Can Learn from AirBNB and #ransackgate

As the Airbnb saga continues, Robert Scoble has checked in reminding folks how to handle crazy customer situations.

Y Combinator founder Paul Graham has also checked in saying Airbnb has most definitely helped the woman, closing with "Even if you don't believe they are nice guys (which they are, among the nicest of all the people we've funded), do you really think they are so dumb that they don't realize it's not worth the bad PR to save money and effort in this situation?" 

Robert's full statement below (reprinted with permission - follow him on Google+). What do you think?

[Above: the latest blog post from EJ, the woman whose apartment got trashed.]

By Robert Scoble

If you read Techmeme this morning you can see AirBNB is in a deep PR crisis: http://www.techmeme.com/110730/p4#a110730p4.

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Airbnb Allows Users to Share Parking Spots

Airbnb is quietly expanding from sharing houses and apartments to parking.

An Airbnb user in San Francisco is currently offering two parking spots in a gated lot at $7 per day per spot. Compare that to paying up to $24 per day at private lots.

LAUNCH contacted Airbnb to confirm the expansion, but a spokesperson said the company did not have time to comment in light of the vandalism incident in San Francisco.

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Sergey Brin Surfs at Google+ Beach Party -- "I'd +1 that"

Google is riding the wave of success today -- the Google+ team got treated to a "beach party" outside their building. Even Sergey got in the wave pool for a little surfing action.

Larry Page, Bradley Horowitz and Vic Gundotra -- who do not attend every Google event -- took part as well, showing the importance of Google+.

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Aol's Wow Shutters, Directs Deal Hunters to Patch

Aol's daily-deal site Wow shut down as of Friday, July 29. When users visit Wow.com, a message directs them to Patch.com for "hyperlocal deals."

Consumers who already bought "Wowchers" have until Dec. 31, 2011 to print them. All coupons will remain valid through their expiration date. 

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Google+ Allows Users to Reorder Their Circles -- and Adds Creepy Giraffe

In response to user feedback, Google+ now allows you to drag and drop your circles in the order you would like them -- not the order Google+ sets.

The new order appears in your list of circles on your left nav and in the drop-down menu when you add someone to a circle.

Google+ engineer Brett van Zuiden announced the change on his Google+ page and explains it in a 47-second video, which ends with the appearance of a stuffed giraffe -- perhaps related to the "zookeeper" circle moved around in the demo.