Excellent travel website

In the harrowing search for affordable places to stay in Manhattan, I found this great website, airbnb.com, kind of a hybrid of couch-surfing.org and rental-by-owner, with a touch of social networking (profiles, messaging and so on).  For the price of a fairly unappealing hotel room (example: two twin beds, shared bath, reviews discussing bedbug infestations and subway noise), I found a lovely private studio in a brownstone about a block from museums, Central Park, etc...complete with fireplace and mini-kitchen.  How this will turn out remains to be seen, but I am quite optimistic.  It also looks like there are a growing number of destinations...I think the service was recently launched.