Not so fast, buster.

Got big plans to save money on your summertime Hamptons excusions by renting someone's designer couch via Airbnb? Well, get ready to hand over your driver's license.

AllThingsD reports that starting today, 25 percent of users will have to submit to the company's new “Verified Identification” process, or you will not be booking any more futons. Hosts can now restrict their rentals to verified users, incentivizing signups.

According to AllThingsD:

“We are drawing a line here and saying we don’t stand for anonymous experiences,” Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said in an interview last week at the company’s San Francisco headquarters. “We don’t think you can be trusted in a place where you’re anonymous.”

The process sounds pretty arduous, actually. It will:

"require users to show that they are a real established online person (through a history of participation and an active existing network on Linkedin or Facebook, or three positive reviews from previous Airbnb stays) and a real established offline person (by scanning their photo ID with the Airbnb mobile app or providing personal details as they would with a credit check)."

Surely this will assuage the fears of skittish people with nice houses--the demographic presumably most valuable to Airbnb. Must be really frustrating if you're on the lam and looking for a cheap place to crash, no questions asked, though.

(Photo: Airbnb)

Today at a press event in San Francisco, travel startup Airbnb announced Airbnb Neighborhoods, a guide to help travelers decide which neighborhood best matches their interests and vacation style. Deemed "the definitive guide to experiencing neighborhoods" by Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky, users can click on different tags relating to the cities to help better acquaint them with local neighborhoods; in London, for example, you can click on "museums" and it will pull up the neighborhoods and rentals closest to museums.

"[Travelers] are overwhelmed with choices and these choices are vastly different," said Mr. Chesky. "We've polled our users and they've told us that location is the most important criteria for them when booking. So we have a problem: location is the most important criteria for travelers. When they come to a city, they have thousands of choices in all different neighborhoods and they're overwhelmed."

Airbnb Neighborhoods is available for 300 neighborhoods across 7 cities. Each neighborhood page will have its own map--charted by an Airbnb cartographer--as well as searchable tags appended by locals that will help you better discover hidden gems. Neighborhoods also have a beautiful layout with photos of the neighborhood and the people who live there. The new feature is built on user research about what kind of things matter to people as they're deciding on a location, including shopping, dining, nightlife and transportation.

The company also announced Airbnb Local Lounge, designated spots that are vetted by Airbnb and can serve as a beacon for Airbnb travelers. Each location will have a free crowdsourced neighborhood guide, and serve as a “warm, inviting” place for travelers looking for a local connection.

These new features help establish Airbnb as a travel suggestion company, not just a place for rental bookings. Plus, having Local Lounges interspersed around a city that provide helpful guidance to users could help encourage those who haven't yet tried Airbnb to finally make the leap.

“Neighborhoods are the original communities. They are the keys to unlocking local culture and one-of-a-kind experiences,” Mr. Chesky said in a release. “By going deeper and tapping into local knowledge, we are introducing our community to a neighborhood’s personality so they can match it with their own.”

At the Digitial Life Design conference in Munich today, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky gave a talk about the "sharing economy," another way of describing the peer-to-peer ecosystem that Betabeat has been closely following. In the talk, Mr. Chesky placed Airbnb in the third-wave of the internet. After e-commerce and social connectivity, this new wave is about using online platforms to share online experiences. According to Mr. Chesky, this wave, which could include companies like Skillshare, TaskRabbit, and Zaarly, can also be unexpectedly lucrative.

Take New York City, for example, where Mr. Chesky said you can "literally" find an Airbnb on every single block in the city. (Currently there are 10,068 listings in New York.) As TechCrunch reports, on stage, Mr. Chesky said, "Airbnb hosts in NYC make $21,000 a year on average, and some even up to $100,000 a year, which I think everyone would agree is a decent chunk of cash for anyone."

We agree, $21,000 to $100,000 is a lot of money for renting out your cramped city apartment when you're out of town, which makes us wonder if the stats he quotes aren't a little misleading. Take the top two "recommended" results in New York City right now. They range from $89 to $139 per night. At that rate, to make the $21,000 average, you would have to rent out your room for 235 to 151 days a year. At that point, we imagine you're gone for so long, that you're also paying rent elsewhere.

What seems more likely is that listings—like these twin cottages in Staten Island, which go for $9,000 a night, and will net you $21,000 in less than three days—are skewing the results. We're all for marketplaces that monetize your unused time, space, or skills, it's just easier to get on board when you don't oversell it.

I was at one time a victim of an awful crime, doing my best to cope. Today, in addition to that, I have unwittingly and unexpectedly become the target of an onslaught, being called a liar and much, much worse by both public and anonymous figures who have no first-hand knowledge whatsoever of the very decent person I am, nor any knowledge of what has transpired in the past several weeks. All of this has exponentially confounded the trauma I already felt, and has taken its toll both emotionally and physically, subjecting me to utter hell. So while Mr. Chesky's public apology to me is clearly a heartfelt one and certainly appreciated, and while I applaud the steps that Airbnb is taking to fulfill its commitment to safety and security, the reality for me is that the hardship continues. As will, no doubt, the nasty comments and unwarranted name-calling that have been thrown in my face.

EJ emailed Betabeat yesterday to say she is no longer comfortable speaking as a public figure and would prefer to speak through her blog, where she has written a 4,700-word saga that began with the sentence, "I am crouched low on the carpeted steps of my apartment building's old staircase, bent over into something resembling the fetal position."

At least she's running a Google ad on her blog, which thanks to the traffic from Hacker News should help defray the costs of Bagel Bites and bus tickets while she rebuilds her abode. Or maybe she should consider another two words: book deal?

Mr. Chesky.

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky's first statement on the highly-publicized matter of the user whose home was burglarized and ransacked by an Airbnb guest was measured, mildly sympathetic, and denied any wrongdoing. The statement he just posted on Airbnb's blog--"Our Commitment to Trust and Safety"--is just about the opposite.

"Earlier this week, I wrote a blog post trying to explain the situation, but it didn’t reflect my true feelings," he writes, and goes on to intimate that he either second-guessed himself when responding to the complaint or  got some bad advice (perhaps from the usually-infallible Paul Graham, who insists Airbnb did nothing wrong?).

"In the last few days we have had a crash course in crisis management," Mr. Chesky writes. "I hope this can be a valuable lesson to other businesses about what not to do in a time of crisis, and why you should always uphold your values and trust your instincts."

Mr. Chesky now says he regrets the way the company handled the user's situation. The victim first blogged about her bad experience just as Airbnb was closing a $112 million round and claims one of Airbnb's founders asked her repeatedly to take the post down or update it with a "happy twist."

The post details Airbnb's new security measures, which include a 24-hour customer service line, doubling the customer service staff, "verified" profiles that show a user's history on Airbnb, as well as customizable "trust settings" similar to the parameters used by Couchsurfing, so guests can restrict their search to only the highest-rated hosts and vice versa. The biggest announcement: a $50,000 insurance policy against theft or vandalism:

Starting August 15th, when hosts book reservations through Airbnb their personal property will be covered for loss or damage due to vandalism or theft caused by an Airbnb guest up to $50,000 with our Airbnb Guarantee. Terms will apply to the program and may vary (e.g. by country). This program will also apply retroactively to any hosts who may have reported such property damage prior to August 1, 2011.

"Terms will apply," Airbnb says, although those terms don't appear to be posted on the site yet. It will likely include a burden of proof such as a police report or successful prosecution--the safety FAQ advises users to get police involved immediately.

The post doesn't say whether Airbnb has repaired its relationship with "EJ," the user whose blog post inspired a public relations nightmare. EJ told Betabeat in an email that she'd have a statement this week, so we expect to find out soon whether Mr. Chesky can win her back.

Airbnb's reputation.

The story of the Airbnb user whose apartment was burglarized and trashed by an Airbnb renter continues. A blog post written by the victim, "EJ," took a month to hit the internets--but once it did, it hit big, prompting Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky to write a response on TechCrunch yesterday to say that he was in close contact with the victim and the police and that with Airbnb's help, a suspect was in custody.

Bullshit, EJ wrote in an update on her blog yesterday, responding to Mr. Chesky line by line. Someone was apprehended a month ago, she writes, but he or she was "transferred to a neighboring jurisdiction for prosecution of previous crimes, and no charges or arrest warrant has been issued for my case within San Francisco County. If this has changed and Chesky’s statement is in fact true, I have not been made aware by city officials."

“We have been in close contact with her ever since, and have worked with the authorities to help find a resolution,” Mr. Chesky wrote.

EJ's answer:

"If the 'her' he is referring to is me, then the first part of this statement is false (the second I cannot attest to). During the first week of my nightmare, the customer service team at Airbnb was - as I stated in my June 29 blog post – helpful, caring and supportive. In particular, one customer service manager - and the company’s freelance photographer - were wonderfully kind to me, and both should know how grateful I am.

On June 29 I posted my story, and June 30 thus marks the last day I heard from the customer service team regarding my situation. In fact, my appointed 'liaison' from Airbnb stopped contacting me altogether just three days after I reported the crime, on June 25, for reasons that are unknown to me. I have heard nothing from her since.

I blogged my story, and all these kind and supportive people just ... disappeared."

But the most damning part of this update: EJ claims an Airbnb co-founder called her after seeing the blog post last month and asked her to take it down because the company was raising a round of funding.

"During this call and in messages thereafter, he requested that I shut down the blog altogether or limit its access, and a few weeks later, suggested that I update the blog with a 'twist'of good news so as to 'complete[s] the story.'"

Obviously, she didn't, and since then, she received "occasional contact regarding my situation, his messages directed primarily at my blog post and its activity on Twitter."

Airbnb has reached out to EJ and is waiting for a response, Mr. Chesky wrote on Hacker News today. EJ noted that "a second co-founder did email me for the first time around 2am yesterday, suggesting we meet for coffee as he 'would enjoy meeting' me. He made no inquiry into my current emotional state, my safety or my well being." Neither of the co-founders she spoke to were Mr. Chesky, she said.

As Airbnb continues to make itself look worse, Betabeat received an email from New York-based Airbnb competitor Roomorama, founded and bootstrapped by Jia En Teo and Federico Folcia, who started renting their apartment out to short-term visitors and turned it into a business in January 2009. The site lists 1,520 properties in New York.

Roomorama requires guests and hosts to email a scanned photo ID to confirm the name on the credit card in order to make a booking, Ms. En Teo said, and she believes this simple extra step has deterred a lot of users--honest ones as well as thieves--which is fine with her.

"We do lose people that way," she said. "But in the long run it is much better because we're getting ony the hosts who will take the time to address guest concerns and guest questions."

Roomorama had an issue with a thieving guest, she said, but they caught it early, jumped on it right away and got the police involved.

"Personally, we take a lot of pride in making sure that we're providing that kind of support to our users," she said.

If she were in Mr. Chesky's shoes, she said, "the way we would handle it is we take this kind of thing very seriously and try to respond as quickly as possible" to make the host happy. Roomorama has a customer service line open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern time and a 24-hour email service line, manned by a team of four.

It's a lot of work, she said, but she'd rather the service be smaller and more exclusive than huge and unregulated. "We don't want to trade off security for volume," she said.

"Roomorama and marketplaces like ours are supposed to be one notch above the wild, wild West of Craigslist," she said.

Roomorama's security measures aren't overwhelming, but it's an interesting contrast to the $1 billion-valued Airbnb, which performs no identity checks. "We make no attempt to confirm, and do not confirm, any user's purported identity," the terms of services says.

The harrowing story of the Airbnb user EJ prompted Ms. En Teo to reach out to her competitors in order to set a precedent for sharing information about sketchy users, so if she gets a report about misbehavior she can send an alert to get him or her banned from other sites. Incidents like this hurt the entire market as well as individual users, she said.

Meanwhile, Airbnb has not responded to Betabeat's request for comment.

ADDITION: A commenter below points out Couchsurfing.com, the free version of Airbnb, has a verification system for hosts--you donate some money to Couchsurfing, and they send a postcard to your mailing address with a code, which you then enter on the site to verify your address. Couchsurfing employs several levels of verification--users post testimonials about each other (a la Friendster) and are required to fill out a long form with information about their interaction in order to do so; power users can "vouch" for other users, a high-level seal of approval, and once a user has three "vouches" he or she can then vouch for others; and verification, which is the address confirmation system.

Airbnb's reputation.

The terrifying blog post that blew up on Hacker News yesterday--we saw it via Jason Kottke, which shows you it was making the rounds even though it was a month old--about what happens when Airbnb guests go bad, is by far Airbnb's worst public relations crisis yet. Worse than the Craigslist spam; worse than the possibility that the service in some cases technically violates a New York City law.

While the victim may have been a bit overdramatic in her retelling of the story, and also appears to have been remiss during the due diligence phase, we expected Airbnb--the company that sold Obama-themed cereal while it was bootstrapping and whose CEO spent a year homeless so he could use the service all around San Francisco--we expected such a creative, marketing-minded start-up to bend over backwards to fix this woman's life. $1 billion valuation? Get this woman a house!

Instead, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky responded in a blog post on TechCrunch today to say Airbnb is "devastated" that the incident "undermined... a case study that people are fundamentally good." Then he outlined some safety changes Airbnb would be making, including doubling its customer support staff. "We have begun development on improvements to increase the safety of Airbnb," he writes, including offering insurance to hosts.

This reads kind of like, Oops, sorry guys, we thought all our users were nuns and saints. Now that someone has had her house wrecked, we guess we will offer insurance and do some other safety stuff that we didn't think of before! "Definitely seems like PR 101 to me," one commenter writes at TechCrunch. "When word of this spreads outside the tech world & this story is the first impression millions of people get of AirBnB, the company is done. They need to cover the damages, regardless of legal responsibility. By not covering them, the company is giving the impression that they don't want to set a precedent if this were to happen again-- leading one to believe even they know it will certainly happen again."

It's a black eye for a heretofore-blessed company. Mr. Chesky should be glad the crime wasn't worse--it didn't rise to the level of the Craigslist killer or Couchsurfing.com rapist--but Airbnb would do well to pull out all the stops in order to prevent more incidents. People still use Craigslist and Couchsurfing, but those sites are free.

Yet the victim--and most commenters--are still positive on Airbnb:

I would be remiss if I didn’t pause here to emphasize that the customer service team at airbnb.com has been wonderful, giving this crime their full attention. They have called often, expressing empathy, support, and genuine concern for my welfare. They have offered to help me recover emotionally and financially, and are working with SFPD to track down these criminals. I do believe the folks at airbnb.com when they tell me this has never happened before in their short history, that this is a one-off case. I do believe that maybe 97% of airbnb.com's users are good and honest people. Unfortunately I got the other 3%. Someone was bound to eventually, I suppose, and there will be others. For this reason, I felt compelled to get my story out as soon as possible – as a warning to travelers and renters everywhere – even though this case remains under investigation, and the final chapter of this story remains unwritten.

The post elicited more stories of experience with Airbnb, most of them positive--but one host had also had bad eggs. "We rent out out place on Airbnb and have had amazing renters, except for one who decided to throw a fourth of July party in our New York City apartment. It wasn't too bad, a broken potted plant and money to cover the damages was left, but never once did we think to blame Airbnb for it."

The worst damage probably comes from Airbnb's response to the emergency--the victim tried their "urgent" line, email and general customer support line and heard nothing back for 14 hours. The case is still open--although with the perp's name, email address and phone number circulation the webs, we wouldn't be surprised to see some kind of modern justice.

CEO Brian Chesky is doing damage control on Hacker News this morning.

Airbnb founder Brian Chesky

Airbnb just sent Betabeat a statement about the recently-implemented "illegal hotels" law that renders some of the activity on the site illegal in New York. The law is not targeted at Airbnb, a rep said, and a majority of its users are unaffected by it--but either way, the site isn't legally responsible for the arrangements users make and the company is "working directly" with the city about how the law impacts its users.

Here's the full statement (emphasis ours):

The law that has gone into effect recently is not targeted at Airbnb Hosts in New York City, the majority of whom rent out their primary residences and are unaffected by the bill. The newly enacted law is aimed at illegal hotel and hostel-like establishments which are not a part of the Airbnb community. We agree with the spirit of the law, which says that visitors and tourists deserve to be protected and the Airbnb service is designed to enhance the safety and protection of visitors and tourists when visiting cities like New York.

Airbnb’s only role is to facilitate the availability of this marketplace for the Host and to provide services related to this and any agreement for the use of any accommodation is the sole responsibility of the Host.

Airbnb founder Brian Chesky spoke out against the law when it was first considered in June of last year, saying "as far as I can tell, this will affect thousands of families, young professionals and elderly people" who use the site to subsidize their rent.

"The law that went into effect May 1 is good news for New York City’s tourism industry—the quality of life of our residents will be improved, and safety and security for our visitors will be enhanced," Tiffany Townsend, a representative from NYC & Company--the city's tourism arm--said in an email.

A state law that went into effect this month makes it much tougher to rent residential rooms for less than 30 days, a response to "online activities in promoting illegal short stays at much cheaper prices than the regular pricey New York hotels. The enforcement is complaint based, and fueled largely by calls to 311," according to IBTimes.

Airbnb's founder Brian Chesky spoke out against the law when it was being debated last year. "This legislation is being painted as slumlords who convert apartments to illegal hotels," he told the New York Times. "But as far as I can tell, this will affect thousands of families, young professionals and elderly people" [who use the site to subsidize their rent].

The law appears to be directed at landlords who use Airbnb in addition to sites like Craigslist and Roomorama to rent rooms--or in the case of "Hotel Toshi," rooftops--for short-term stays. But tenants who rent out their space using Airbnb may also be on the wrong side of the law.

Peer-to-peer rentals are allowed under the "appropriate exceptions for roommates, boarders, etc. who live or rent in the unit with the permanent occupant." But if the tenant is away--as many listings on Airbnb advertise--it's technically illegal. These illegal listings also live on other sites, but Airbnb has a specific "private apartments" category.

Some Airbnb users in the city were the target of legal action even before the recent "illegal hotels" law came into effect.

"The renting out of some or all of their space by the night is an obvious and egregious overcharge, the operation of a hotel without paying hotel taxes, and a violation of the zoning laws, not to mention the terms of the residential lease," Adam Rose of Rose Associates told the Town & Village in March.

Rose Associates manages Stuytown, the residential complex at the edge of the East Village, where some residents have complained about transients and bedbugs coming in through the site. The residence's manager, Rose Associates, has declared Airbnb-ing illegal and says it is "aggressively" pursuing legal action against residents who rent their apartments through the site.

"We are directing our efforts at the tenants," he said. "To attempt to control the actions of websites with which we have no relationship or connection would not be a productive activity."

We've reached out to the Mayor's office and Airbnb for further clarification. UPDATE: Airbnb responded.