The dramatic rise in social media during the past decade has empowered people to easily create and maintain an ongoing dialogue with friends and family regardless of their locations. Today, it is almost impossible to escape posts, Tweets, texts, chats, and even the old school SMS. For the upcoming decade, Peer-to-Peer (P2P) platforms will transform what social media has started into the next big thing: the share economy.
The concept of the share economy is really simple; rent out something that you are not currently using. One of the best examples is Airbnb, a global platform that allows people to rent out either a room or their entire home to travelers seeking a more local experience. Currently, Airbnb has more than 800,000 listings in 33,000 cities located in 192 countries. This incredible growth story has all happened since the company was founded in 2008, since then it has disrupted the entire hotel industry.
Another interesting example is RelayRides, a peer-to-peer platform that allows car owners to rent out their cars. They can set their own prices and RelayRides takes 25% for the connection. A partnership with GM and its OnStar division allows borrowers to reserve and unlock the GM cars using mobile phones. In the past, if someone drove off with your car, you were dialing the police. Now, you can expect money to be deposited in your bank account.
I can go on and on, since there are so many platforms participating in the share economy. TaskRabbit is a site for hiring people to do tasks. Liquid allows you to rent a bike from your neighbor. Fon is a network for sharing Wi-Fi access. And let’s not forget Uber, the global peer-to-peer giant that can turn anyone into a taxi service. The share economy is booming and it makes a lot of sense. For centuries, people have acquired lots of things so they can point to them and say, “That’s mine.” Nowadays, more and more people are pointing to things and saying, “I want to share that.”
For more information on the share economy, please refer to the following articles:
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbnb
Airbnb, Snapgoods, and 12 More Pioneers of the “Share Economy”, Forbes, http://tinyurl.com/ouy9qze
Airbnb Lifestyle: The Rise of the Hipster Nomad: Techcrunch, Prerna Gupta, October 3rd, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/prjqdl3
For more information about the Corvinus Global Business blogger, go to https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinmjackson1.
Blog 8
