A recent RelayRides car accident is bringing attention to some of the liability issues associated with sharing economy borrowing arrangements.

Read On »

Just kidding!  Happy April Fools 2012 :-) It was only a matter of time before dating sites got into the game. Up until now, the sharing economy has been limited to cars, designer dresses, and books: objects. For the first time ever, people are on offer. Popular social network and dating site OKCupid has developed [...]

Read On »

A proposed 15% tax on “transient occupancy” is being considered at San Francisco city hall. The rule would force Airbnb to collect an additional 15% on rentals – a move that some say may severely hinder its ability to function. Is this just the access economy just growing up?

Read On »

RentStuff.com, a new “access economy” startup, allows you to rent your things to others and make money. According to the site, it’s a “marketplace where you can rent *almost* anything.” If you’ve ever been in a situation where you needed a four person tent and ended up buying one on Craigslist because you didn’t want [...]

Read On »

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you know that “collaborative consumption” is all the rage. Housing, transportation, service, or old clothing — they’ve all got peer-to-peer marketplaces. What challenges is the industry facing? What problems do you have to solve to be successful?

Read On »

As part of our report on The Airbnb of Anything: The Growth of P2P Markets, we wanted to talk to a young company in the collaborative consumption space about the challenges they’re facing, and the strides they’ve made. Introducing SideTour, a peer-to-peer marketplace for authentic experiences.

Read On »

Wifi, like cars, has an enormous untapped capacity that until recently had no viable way to be shared with others. KeyWifi is readying to launch a web based service that will allow people to safely share and rent their excess capacity to others. The implications are tremendous.

Read On »

As of 2012, the concept of sharing has moved from a community practice into a legitimate business opportunity.

Read On »

It seems everywhere you look these days, people are proclaiming this the year of collaborative consumption, C2C, otherwise commonly known as the sharing economy. But one company lives up to the hype.

Read On »

If you thought that vending machines that dispense nothing but baby carrots are the latest green innovation in this field, we’ve got news for you. There’s a vending machine that is far more progressive and innovative. It’s a vending machine that provides you with a “fun way to save the earth” and doesn’t even want any money in return. Intrigued? Welcome to the world of Swap-O-Matic.

Read On »

The American Dream defines a nation obsessed with individual achievement at the price of an equitable society. But what if we are wrong? The promise of the “sustainable green” movement is a society that understands the interrelationships between social justice and the food, health and environment systems for all living organisms. We are at a crossroads with an opportunity as a nation to rebuild our brand and show the world that is possible to regain our sense of self and community and truly capture the American Dream.

Read On »

Have you ever shared a car ride, lent someone a book, made a mix tape, or traded clothing? Then you’re part of the WEconomy, a new economic model where communities of consumers share, swap or rent goods as opposed to owning them.

Read On »

On Saturday, November 19th and 20th, Shareable and Parsons Desis Lab hosted ShareNY, a conference on the sharing economy in New York City. If your reaction is, “But New Yorkers don’t share!” you’re probably forming judgments based on bad Hollywood movies. NYC is quite a shareable city; people live in apartment buildings (often with roommates), take public [...]

Read On »

Last Thursday, the New York Times had an interesting piece on green consumption during the recession. The article provided very interesting examples from people who try to live sustainable life, including two of our colleagues on the green media world, Lloyd Alter of Treehugger and David Quilty of The Good Human. The article pointed out [...]

Read On »

Mobile is unlocking possibilities for local lifestyles that could very well redefine consumption as we know it. Location based micro-economies are emerging with increasing levels of sophistication – micro-economies operated by you and I. Now, anyone with a smartphone and something to offer can be a friendly neighbourhood retailer. Every day, mobile startups are creatively making this easier and more enjoyable in the name of collaborative consumption, the groundswell movement within which true sustainability may finally be achieved.

Read On »

Some of us (ahem) have lived long enough to remember when collaboration was not all that radical a concept, in the business world and even in Congress. Alas collaboration lately has become a buzzword, something that businesses and their PR departments are eager to pay lip service to and perhaps aspire to achieve with their [...]

Read On »

I recently came across an article called, “How Can Innovation Decouple Growth and Consumption” I was intrigued by this as I’ve been wondering for some time if such a decoupling is possible. The piece describes a number of ways “to constrain consumption that do not continue to stress, deplete, degrade or waste our natural resource [...]

Read On »

By Danielle Zimmerman Building upon comfort with sharing content and information online on sites like Flickr and Wikipedia we are recognizing the potential of sharing more than the digital –the tangible, our possessions. New options are emerging where the 20th-century mindset of buy-use-dispose is being replaced by systems where access trumps ownership and individuals take [...]

Read On »

eBay GroupGifts promises consumers that its users can give fabulous gifts as part of a gift, whether it is the grandchildren pitching in for grandma or the worker bees collaborating for their co-worker’s birthday.

Read On »