Hi there + Introduction to fairbnb.coop
Emanuele Dal Carlo
Public
Seen by 122
Hi all and thank you to @cliff1 for inviting me here.
I will try to listen and learn all I can, it seems a very interesting and vibrant community, ideas flowing and most of all right values.
I am the President of Fair Bnb Network coop from Italy, the coop behind the Fairbnb.coop project.
I have been introduced to Cliff by a common contact that has reached us to explore if it was possible to bring fairbnb.coop in UK.
Given our model we can only work in a community if we have local partners so I'd like to extend to all of you the invite to get in touch with me if you may be interested to explore the possibility to use fairbnb.coop to create jobs and opportuinites in your area.
You will find a short presentation attached to this thread.
Don't esitate to ask any question and to bollock me if i used the wrong instrument to introduce myself :-)
Emanuele Dal Carlo Mon 4 Mar 2019 3:45PM
Hi @richarddbartlett thank you , yes of course that would be extremely interesting.
Loomio has been in our radar from the start but we have not yet figured out how we could use it productively for this particular purpose.
Maybe with the right mentor ... :-)
Jeff Regino Sun 19 May 2019 5:07AM
Hi @emanueledalcarlo1 has your team considered a possible trademark issue (your name vs Airbnb)? This concern has been on my mind since last year.
Fairbnb and Airbnb - in terms of spelling and sound, it's very much alike
Graham Sun 19 May 2019 1:05PM
I agree. My assumption is that Airbnb will jump on this the moment they become aware of it.
Graham Sun 19 May 2019 1:06PM
There was a project a couple of years back here in the UK that branded itself Ethicalbay. They got a heavy letter from eBay's lawyers to change their name.
Tom Stewart Sun 19 May 2019 1:29PM
Id share this concern.
Love the model, but i live in a very litigious country. :(
Also curious if its a 'one brand' approach or more of a social franchising orientation, if that makes sense?
Jeff Regino Mon 20 May 2019 7:44AM
@graham2 Thanks for mentioning Ethicalbay. Did they stop operations or change their name?
Jeff Regino Mon 20 May 2019 7:45AM
@tomstewart1 where are you from?
Would you prefer a social franchise of this and if so, why?
Tom Stewart Mon 20 May 2019 8:46AM
Im Irish, specifically Galway, which is a tourist centre, so Im mostly interested at the local node level i guess?
Our city centre hollowed out significantly with airbnb spatial effects, so something different would be welcome.
Emanuele Dal Carlo Mon 20 May 2019 9:16AM
Hi guys, thank you for the good question.
Obviously we have taken it into consideration.
Our lawyer have suggested us to protect us by creating a very distinctive image and branding us as Fair Bnb Coop which although share some of the letters with the big A has also a quite distinctive meaning.
As much as it will be difficult for us to protect the brand it will also very difficult for other to challeng it given that we are using common words ( Fair ) and widely used acronyms ( BNB and coop ) .
In case of a Cease and Desits letter we will oppose and take it from there, i wonder from the marketing point of view what could mean both ways if a super extractive giant will try to take down a little coop of good guys like us :thinking:
Richard D. Bartlett · Mon 4 Mar 2019 9:24AM
Ciao @emanueledalcarlo1 this is exciting. Are you planning to build digital tools for democratic governance? Maybe it will be interesting to talk with us about using Loomio for this purpose :)