We scour the internet to find the most interesting news on the collaborative consumption front. Here are our picks for the week:
Vodafone ‘service friends’ offer custom tech support
DW
Vodafone Germany pilots peer-to-peer tech support that deliver help to users’ doors – for a fee. The scheme is meant to bring together customers needing assistance and young, knowledgeable users.
New U.A.E. Peer-to-Peer Lender Aims at Small-Business Funding Gap
Asa Fitch, Wall Street Journal
Peer-to-peer lending has been around for roughly a decade, sprouting in the U.K. and quickly catching on in the U.S., but it hadn’t existed in the Middle East until the launch this week of Beehive, a new business that aims at securing financing for small businesses in the United Arab Emirates.
More lending choice as peer-to-peer financer launches in market
Gavin McLoughlin, Irish Independent
CoFunder, a new peer-to-peer financing initiative for small businesses has been launched in Ireland, joining the likes of Linked Finance and Grid Finance in the Irish alternative finance market.
Conflicts in the Sharing Economy
NY Times Editorial
It can be hard to stay grounded in reality when talking about the sharing economy. Businesses like Airbnb say they are making the world more efficient by connecting buyers and sellers of services in ways never possible before. Critics argue that these businesses can’t violate rules that apply to everyone else.
Australia’s Emerging Collaborative Economy
ProBono Australia
The Emerging Collaborative Economy in Australia, produced by cloud-based customer intelligence platform company Vision Critical in partnership with consultancy Collaborative Lab and market research firm Nine! Rewards reveals there is already high penetration of brands in the space, with 61 percent of those surveyed aware of services such as Airbnb, Kickstarter, Uber and GoGet Car Share.
This tool-lending library brings the sharing economy out of the city and onto the farm
Darby Minow Smith, Grist
Instead of shelling out big bucks for specialized machinery, food producers in Maine can now join a lending library of farm tools.
Four ways cities can embrace the sharing economy
April Rinne, World Economic Forum Blog
Amidst all the private sector activity, there is something very exciting taking place elsewhere. We’re beginning to rethink how the sharing economy may transform cities: urban planning, civic engagement and innovation. How might the sharing economy provide “invisible infrastructure” for cities to thrive?
