

Study Reveals Big Opportunities in the Sharing Economy - krgaskins
http://www.life-connected.com/2010/10/sharing-study-results-part-3-uncovering-big-opportunities-in-the-sharing-economy/

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_joanna
Revenue streams are interesting to consider with these sharing focused start-
ups. If the values of these users shift to "collaborative consumption", does
that decrease or raise questions with advertising as a source of revenue
(ethically or effectively)? It seems that a possible underlying value of these
ideals is less (or anti) consumerism. Would these users be more open to a 'fee
for service' model? (That would be refreshing.)

Side note: Profounder.com is another example of a social lending platform that
does not require a fee.

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mr_twj
From what I can tell there are two camps that are converging: 1) capitalists
that want to monetize off the 3rd Economy and 2) resource-based social
engineers using a YC-like network of startups to start an internal shared
economy. They are both experimental in nature right now and the future of
which one will succeed will be determined by how efficiently either one is
run. I don't think there's middle ground in the long run.

How would anyone here feel about a crowdfunding platform that would allow
people to fund _local_ startups with objects/space/skills instead of money in
return for their product(s)? This way no money gets wasted and the funded
items are returned (except for the ramen of course) if the startup closes up
shop.

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zachster
Neighborgoods.net charges a fee to "verify" your existence as a real person
(how's that for a CAPTCHA?). I like the idea and thought of it like they
turned my whole area into a Costco. But I had to pay to get my membership
card. On thing their founder has been talking about recently is how more than
saving people money, it's having a dramatic effect on communities that embrace
it. The idea of sharing might be more powerful than the sharing itself.

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joeag
I like the knowledge sharing example - what about an "exclusive" knowledge
sharing forum between certain professionals - say in house lawyers? I know in
the time I was a general counsel there were a lot of questions I didn't have
the answer to at my fingertips and would have loved a group of similarly
qualified professionals to bounce questions and answers off of. Instead I
always ended up researching it myself from scratch.

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pontifier
I notice in the infographic that physical media has the highest latent demand.

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krgaskins
Yes, but the sample size of people who don't share physical media (in an
organized way) is also relatively smaller than other categories (thus, high
market saturation).

Also, for the purposes of mapping opportunity, latent demand was described as
both 1) those who share casually (not through a service or organized
community) and 2) those who don't currently share at all but would be
interested to. In the case of physical media, I suspect there's more people
under #1 than #2.

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mcritz
An interesting look at how community creates economy.

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wolfenkraft
Looks interesting.

