P2P Resources
Information
The Foundation for P2P Alternatives
P2P Foundation ning social website
The P2P foundation is probably the best resource for information about the Peer-to-Peer movement. The wiki has articles covering many subjects such as Governance, Business, Design, Manufacturing, Production, Energy, Money, Politics, Spirituality, Technology.
WatchUsNow film
The WatchUsNow film is a documentary examining the impact of the social web on society. Couchsurfing is covered, along with P2P-related examples.
Life Inc.
Life Inc. The Movie is a short video version of the best selling book by Douglass Rushkoff. Great insights into the value of decentralization to our society.
Hardware/Software platforms
Noserub
Noserub is an open-source social web site that can be set up on a single PC (configured as a server) or on a server. It aggregates user activity from any other Noserub sites or popular big social web sites that the user has an account on. Besides being convenient as an aggregator, it has a big privacy advantage in that the user has potentially much more control over his data (profile, messages, friend connections).
A demonstration (and practically useful) implementation of Noserub is Identoo. You can open an account there to test it's features.
A drawback is that Noserub doesn't yet have built-in groups, but they are in the works for future release. Noserub only has a handful of part-time developers, so progress can be slow.