We scour the internet to find the most interesting news on the collaborative consumption front. Here are our picks for the week:
Uber Confirms New $1.2B Funding Round At $40B Valuation
Ingird Lunden, TechCrunch
Uber, the transportation and ride-sharing startup, has just announced that it has raised another $1.2 billion in funding, and we have separately confirmed with the company that this latest round was made at a $40 billion valuation.
Peers Now Offers Products For Independent Workers In The Sharing Economy
Sarah Buhr, TechCrunch
Peers, a platform that caters to workers in the sharing economy, is launching its first two products. One is a $1 million insurance coverage option for regular Airbnb hosts. The other is a program for Uber, Lyft and other ridesharing drivers that will provide a replacement vehicle for them if their own car should break down or get in an accident.
Collaborative Economy Companies Need To Start Sharing More Value With The People Who Make Them Valuable
Lisa Gansky, FastCompany
On the best-known peer to peer marketplaces, much of the value is being created by individuals both on the supply and the demand side. For example, Airbnb does not own any rooms. Their inventory is our homes, while Airbnb matches guests to hosts and provides services that make booking a home stay quick and painless. But when the founders of Airbnb raised capital from VCs, the expectation was that there would be a lot of wealth created for the people that built and run the platform. And there was zero expectation that any of the people who make the platform work—the hundreds of thousands of hosts across the world—would receive anything other than their share of the booking fees.
The Slippery Slope of Silicon Valley
Nick Bilton, New York Times
While (most) start-ups have been on better behavior this year, there have been dozens of instances when they acted poorly, even unethically — sometimes playing fast and loose with our personal information, other times taking advantage of the lack of government oversight.
What Airbnb Gets About Culture that Uber Doesn’t
Arun Sundararajan, Harvard Business Review
In this article, Arun describes the similarities between the two companies and also their stark differences when it comes to connecting with providers, pricing and community building.
Rupert Murdoch, James Packer invest in SocietyOne peer-to-peer start-up
James Chessel and Sarah Thompson, Australian Financial Review
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation and private investment companies controlled by James Packer and Kerry Stokes have joined the rush to invest in peer-to-peer lenders by agreeing to take a stake in Sydney start-up SocietyOne.
Orchard: The Catalyst for the Peer to Peer Lending Industry
JD Alois, Crowdfund Insider
Article gives a brief on the players in the p2p lending industry and argues why p2p lending as a business model is a compelling one.
Inflation smashing returns: A simple guide to peer-to-peer lending
Financial News UK
A basic guide to p2p lending for those interested in using the service.
The Future Of Work In The Sharing Economy
Huffington Post
Livestream of the discussion about the Future of Work in the Sharing Economy at the Aspen Institute.The panel discusses the benefits — and the downsides — of the sharing economy for the workers who provide the services? What is the influence of the sharing economy on the future of work? What are the implications for public policy and business practice?
Share: Summit 2014 Focuses on the Future of the Sharing Economy
The SHARE:Summit, a ‘community-powered event’ connecting stakeholders from all sectors of the sharing economy, saw 200 delegates from across business, government, and non-profit organisations come together to debate how best to progress collaborative consumption and move away from a make-use-dispose consumption model.
As Bricks and Clicks Merge, Geeks Are Discovering Politics
Steven Strauss, Huffington Post
America’s statutes, policies and regulations (Laws) are designed for a non-digital world — a world where a taxi was something you hailed on the street, not by clicking a smartphone app. The world of Bricks (i.e., the older traditional economy) and Clicks (i.e, the newer tech-fueled economy) are merging. With this merger, we are forced to examine our existing Laws
