A new chapter: Couchers is officially out of Beta!
Quick summary: we are out of Beta and into version 1, we're releasing a new strategy around safe & active community instead of bashing our competitors, a fancy redesigned landing page, and a bunch of new features to make core couch surfing functionality better! Share the platform with your friends and let's grow the community together!
We are super excited to share that Couchers is today finally out of the Beta phase with our version 1 (v1) launch. After five years of building and developing the platform and community―first through the Alpha stage and a very long Beta stage―we are finally ready for our big launch! This means a brand new strategy, a spiffy new landing page, and a bunch of new features.
Today we are launching our new strategy centered around a commitment on being the safest, healthiest, and most active couch surfing community. This is an evolution of our original plan, but adapted for the next stage of the community, where we clearly define what we stand for instead of living the shadow of another platform.
In addition, we are launching a brand new landing page to more clearly communicate our values and what sets us apart, and to explain what our community is all about to newbies and veteran couch surfers alike.
Finally, we have combined a number of exciting new features into this release. These have been gradually rolled out over the past few months to make sure they are ready for you today (and hopefully mostly free of bugs)! Read on to find out what these are.
What does the v1 launch mean?
Although the platform has been usable for a long time, until now, even some of the core functionality has been somewhat buggy and not as polished as we would like, in order to call it "complete". The v1 launch signals the completion of the platform in the sense that core functionality has been cleaned up and we believe it is fully ready for all to use! A lot of this cleanup effort was also done in the v0.9.9 release a few months ago.
This launch means we can now focus on growing the platform and coming up with new features that set us apart and help you connect with other members better.
New Features in v1
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