By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
Vacation homes seems to be the flavor du jour on the web. I recently did a story on mimbeo.com. Now there is another company who has a different spin on accessing vacation homes on the web.
SecondPorch.com is a brand new innovative, Facebook application that allows user to trade and rent vacation homes among their trusted group of friends and networks. Based in Portland Oregon and launched SecondPorch.com is the first socially enabled vacation home site available on Facebook. Its Facebook application is titled “Rent & Trade Vacation Homes”.
Vacation home rentals are a growing $50 billion industry. Currently there are 8 million second homeowners in the United States alone, of which less than 25% are used as rentals. In today’s tight economy, SecondPorch.com is offering a chance for consumers to significantly save money, as well as create a new outlet to recoup investments of owners strapped by second mortgages.
Brent Hieggelke launched SecondPorch.com not just because vacation home rentals are the fastest growing segment of the lodging industry, but also because he had a rental horror story of his own. Apparently a few years ago, Mr. Hieggelke’s father rented his vacation home through traditional means only to find that the group of 20 men hosting a bachelor party managed to cause about $4,000 worth of damage including a fireplace glass door broken, all of the pictures on the walls of historic photos had been broken, and glasses of red wine had been smashed against the walls. Mr. Hieggelke knew right then that someone needed to create a way to rent or trade vacation homes among a trusted group of friends thus Second Porch was born.
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By: The Editor
The first American railroad charter was obtained on February 6, 1815, by Colonel John Stevens of Hoboken, New Jersey. Stevens was granted permission by the government to build and operate a railroad between the Delaware and Raritan Rivers near Trenton, New Jersey, and New Brunswick, Canada.
In the last 194 years since Colonel Stevens vision, the entire global transportation system has grown beyond what most people can even comprehend.
NewEnglandRailroad which is located in Maine plans on bring back some of the classic charm that railroads once represented. The have estimated launch date of summer 2010. They initially plan to travel between Portland, Maine and Montreal. They have the most unbelievable trains that makes you want to remember a time where the world operated at a slower pace.
