The Evolution of People-Powered Markets: 60 Resources

Posted by on Monday, June 20, 2011 · Leave a Comment 

There is a growing movement towards peer-to-peer value exchange and production, prompted by a variety of things, like economic conditions, shifting cultural values, exploration into collective intelligence, and further enabled by social technologies. I’ve been tracking the online marketplaces that have been cropping up for sharing, swapping, gifting and renting, as well as sites that give people different kinds of opportunity to share skills and knowledge, innovate, and work collaboratively both on and offline. Below are a few sites I’ve come across, please add any I’ve missed.

People-Powered Markets for Gifting / Sharing / Swapping / Renting  / Value Exchange

http://www.cleanfleetreport.com/clean-fleet-articles/zipcar-ipo-car-share/

Car Sharing
Ride Sharing

- Zimride
- NuRide
- liftshare
- GoLoco
- yRides
Bike Sharing

- BIXI
- B-cycle
- Smartbike
- OYBike

Gifting

- Freecycle
- GiftFlow

Space Sharing

http://www.couchsurfing.org/

- Place2Stay
- The Hospitality Club
- GlobalFreeloaders
- CouchSurfing

Peer to Peer Rental

- Rentalic
- Zilok

Room/Space Rentals

- Airbnb
- Loosecubes

Swap Trading

- Swap.com
- U-Exchange

Land Sharing

http://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=133961

- Landshare
- SharedEarth

Resource sharing/borrowing/lending

- NeighborGoods
- ecomodo
- Share Some Sugar
- thingloop

Clothing Swap

- The Clothing Exchange
- Swap for Good
- thredUP

People-Powered Marketplaces for Work / Co-Production / Innovation / Value Creation

Coworking

http://www.deskmag.com/en/820-coworking-spaces-worldwide-statistics

- The Hub
- Hub Culture
- General Assembly
- coworking/registry

Co-production

- TechShop
- Hackerspaces
- betahaus

Work Cooperative / Distributed Work

- Dreamfish

Resource Networks / Skill Sharing

- superfluid
- Assetmap
- skilio

Barter Networks

- ITEX
- Bartercard
- OurGoods
- Barter Brokers
- Tradebank
- Nubarter

Idea/Innovation Marketplace

- One Billion Minds
- hypios
- Quirky
- InnoCentive
- Open IDEO
- simpl

What sites have you seen that are offering new ways to exchange or create value?

–

Upcoming will be a post on People-Powered Capital, exploring platforms for crowdfunding, investment, and lending.

Category: value creation · Tags: , , , , , ,

venessa miemis

(253 posts)

  • http://alchemyofchange.net Gideon Rosenblatt

    Good list. Two quick additions:
    ShareZen: http://sharezen.com/

    And Lisa Gansky’s site: http://meshing.it/
    (though it’s not a service and I see you have it on your blogroll, they have a great directory of sharing businesses)

  • http://www.farbeyondthestars.com/ evbogue

    Hey V,

    I really appreciate this post. I’m investigating the list now.

    I’ve only used two of these services.

    1. Zipcar. I use this for occasional trips out of whichever city i happen to find myself in. Most recently for a day trip to Chukanut national forest North of Seattle. $115 for a convertible Mini-cooper that’s parked only a few blocks away? It’s an amazing deal.

    2. Airbnb. I use this to land in new cities when I move. Most recently landing at The Virginian, an old hotel that is now apartments and Airbnb spaces in Bell Town Seattle. Someday I imagine I’ll be able to Airbnb apartments for months anywhere in the world. This is going to revolutionize hotels, apartments, everything.

    Best,
    Ev

  • http://www.collaborativeconsumption.com rachel botsman
    • Venessa Miemis

      nice! i was wondering if you had something like that compiled on the site. thanks for sharing the link.

  • http://twitter.com/ShareableDesign Shareable Magazine

    Hey Venessa, also a list at the below link, which is also extensive offering a few worthwhile additions:
    http://www.shareable.net/blog/gen-y-guide-to-collaborative-consumption

    Our list was created with Gen Y / young adults in mind.

  • http://eatwellguide.org Jamie Leo

    EatWellGuide.org has listings of 20,000+ sustainable, locally grown and organic vendors.

    Our foundation works with local organizations and vendors to provide an important network of resources, as well as a mapping tool that allows travelers to route a travel itinerary to find local eating options throughout the US and Canada (and it really enhances the quality of a road trip).

    • Venessa Miemis

      hi jamie,

      sounds like a search engine though, not a marketplace.

      • http://eatwellguide.org Jamie Leo

        Fair enough; tho the model of search engine as marketplace is certainly central to our online experience, yes? A key purpose of Eat Well Guide is to build community for often marginalized food producers. This is why i, perhaps erroneously, thought you’d find the Guide appropriate; it seems to me that the people-to-people exchange of info might fit into your evolutionary model. BTW – thanks for your terrific post!

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  • http://gravatar.com/alkwi alkwi

    Givmo (https://www.givmo.com) is a gifting community where money is donated to charity with every item given.

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  • http://twitter.com/peoplecentred Jeff Mowatt

    Sharing and people-centered local economies anyone. It is above all about putting at the centre of business and economics.

    http://forestofdean.socialgo.com/magazine/read/the-case-for-local-sustainable-enterprise_38.html

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  • http://www.facebook.com/sanjukt Sanjukt K. Saha

    Wow. Great to be featured on a wonderful blog!

    Sanjukt Saha / Founder / http://www.onebillionminds.com

  • http://www.walababoard.com Philippe Verstichel

    Hi Venessa,
    In the same vein as ‘coworking’, have a look at http://www.kodesk.com .This is a real people-powered market, though it is best described as peer-to-peer sharing by his founder Sebastien (@sarbogast).
    For information, after the big 2010 success, we will be organizing the 2nd European Conference on Coworking in Berlin. I will be moderating a camp on ‘Innovation and Coworking’. See here: http://coworkingconference.com/
    Phil

  • http://www.facebook.com/darcy.lambert1 Darcy Lambert

    Nice reference to some wonderful services.

    Even though I have not used any of the sites listed above, I have used a long distance carpooling service in the UK which works on the idea of collaborative consumption.

    I used to travel alone on week-ends from London to Birmingham atleast 2 time a week in my car(simply because it is more convenient and since the train service is less reliable). But now I carpool(collaborate) with others who want to make the same trip.

    On the web service, http://www.blablacar.com , I post my trip and find(or get found by) other who are making the same trip and share the ride with them. I save on my petrol and toll costs(so do the others who carpool with me), find my trips more sociable and also together we reduce our CO2 emissions. Security in doing so (carpooling with strangers) was my biggest fear, but the service on the site allows the users to list their preferences and at the same time allows the carpool community to give ratings based on their carpooling experience with each other, this really helped me make my decision, as to who I want to carpool with.

    All in all I am very happy with this service and my idea and perception of collaboration has really broadened. And now I will probably start using some of the services (depending on my needs) which you have mentioned above.

    I hope more and more people start adapting service like these.

    Cheers,
    Darcy

    • Venessa Miemis

      thanks for sharing, darcy! i mostly work from home and my car just sits outside doing nothing. i’d love to be able to rent it out, but i don’t think that service has arrived in our area just yet.

    • http://www.walababoard.com Philippe Verstichel

      Hi Darcy,

      Nice to read your story. During one year (2002) I commuted from London to Oxford. I enjoyed the landscape travelling through Henley-on-Thames, passing by the Manoir of George Harrison on the long and winding roads .. Unfortunately carpooling was not so commonplace at that time. Driving alone is not fun and the name ‘blablacar’ tells it all ! Oxford also has a very good P+R (Park & Ride) infrastructure making it even more amenable to carpooling. Some public infrastructure can act like ‘magnet’ or ‘reinforcer’ for the development of collaborative consumption.

      Back in Belgium, I travel by train because our network here is tremendously rich. For trips below 10 miles, I use my bike. If by chance you come over to Belgium, the system here is called VAP : http://www.vap-vap.be/spip.php?article45 ; their approach is slightly different from ‘blablacar’. VAP is a typical example of partnership between ‘people-powered’ services and ‘public’ services. A pure ‘people-powered’ carpooling system will be soon available also in Belgium : http://www.djengo.be/ ;

      It is obvious that technology is key in the development of these ‘people-powered’ services. As you mention, trust is an important ingredient and, community-vetting is becoming the most appropriate mechanism to ensure one can share and collaborate without fear.

      Phil

  • http://www.autonetzer.de Frauke

    In Germany, when it comes to peer-2-peer carsharing, you will notice Autonetzer as one of the majors.

    • Werner

      Thank you for your post Frauke. I only knew tamyca(http://www.tamyca.de) as a carsharing service, which seems to be even bigger.

      • Werner

        Whoops, failed at creating a link and didn’t find an edit function.
        Here is the correct one: tamyca carsharing

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