Bridging the gap - 6 degrees and couch surfing - Web 3.0 in action?

I'm postponing my thoughts on Eds email just for now so I can write down some quick thoughts spawned from my weekend Couchsurfing in Stockholm (and inspired by a conversation with Stanley Nyoni of TNSI).

It started when I was thinking about how Africa has the least amount of connections (6 degrees of freedom concept) - they have 7 or 8 (I should reference this but its hear-say I'm afraid). I realised that by meeting Stanley (Zimbabwe / Sweden), I have more connection to Africa, and vice versa.

I started to think about quality of connections in complex networks. I gather that the quality of a Connector or Hub is normally 'how many link it has, but I want to change it to the relevance or usefulness of those links to specific tasks. So that depending on the task in hand, a few quality links are better than numerous useless ones.

What does it mean - to be linked to someone? What is the point of my link to Stanley's Network, and what does this mean for sustainability?

With Stanely we discussed this and he helped me to the realisation that: When I watch the news I care MORE if I know someone from an aflicted area - even if they arn't there at the time. By knowing Stanley, I feel more concern for Zimbabwe, because I feel a link to his family there. By knowing Khuloud in my class from Palestine, I feel more concern at the current situation, to the point that I care for Khuloud, and feel and extra concern regarding its effect on her.

Stanley thinks that raising consciousness is key in the path towards sustainability. So how do we raise conciousness? How is the internet a tool for raising consciousness. Facebook and other social networking sites help me to maintain communication with people I allready know, and links me to their networks, however to draw those networks closer - for me to raise my conciousness I need more - in general (bar the odd occasion) social networking hasn't developped my sense of consiousness, simply has webified my connections - I added them to the sites - that is soooo 2.0

Couchsurfing - I / we couchsurfers have a need - for cheap sleep or to make friends...
Using the internet to communicate, and collaborate, leading to meeting someone NEW. to developing a rapport and to caring for those people, is helping to build HIGH-QUALITY links. The more international surfing that goes on, the more international links we can forge. By Hosting a surfer from China, we share our cultures, learn and bond, facilitating the development of our mutual consiousness.

The glue for my ideas hasn't set, but I'm starting to think around how web 3.0 can help us work towards sustainability, and where business fits within this.
Can couchsurfing provide a business platform template towards service orientated web collaboration that actually encourages people to care about each other? (SP4 combatting the systematic degradation of the capacity of people to meet their needs)
What other concepts and projects are out there that work in this way? - that not only leverage business towards sustainability but have some physical real-world outcomes with SP4 repercussions?

Thats all for now...

Alice