What's Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption

models based on memberships (Zipcar, Bag Borrow or Steal), service fees (Airbnb, Zopa), and micropayments for usage (BIXI, BabyPlays) being established. Also, as companies start to redefine themselves as acting as the bridge between individual users and the community, we will trust them more, and as a result interact with them in different ways. Th

Today reputation serves not only as a psychological reward or currency, but also as an actual currency—called reputation capital. We

The Web site for BIXI, the bicycle-sharing service in Montreal, announces “We are BIXI,” and this announcement is followed by a manifesto declaring what the members believe in: “Because we know that being part of the solution means knowing that great changes can arise from the smallest of actions done together. Because we’re thinking and behaving d

Manzini describes diversified access as creating a system whereby users can enter in a number of different ways and get similar results. Dim Dom, a French toy-sharing company, achieves this access by allowing consumers to participate through a number of different entry points—in this case, prices and the period of subscription. The company satisfie

The design world reinvents assumptions and recombines ideas to turn “What if?” and “How might we?” into “What we can do.” Design thinking will be critical in taking the world of Collaborative Consumption out of the realm of possibilities and into real workable solutions, solutions that fulfill our consumer whims, desires, and unarticulated needs, b

“Everything about our company is our brand.” Airbnb’s founders see the company’s role as empowering the host to create the optimal experience. From advice on the types of photos to post and descriptions to leave to a kit of suggestions of the little things hosts can do, such as place a mint on the guest pillow, their goal is to make the user, and t

RelayRides and BlockChalk are examples of Manzini’s “fluidity of use,” the idea of removing barriers to use so that the solution is attractive and seamless to take up. Fluidity of use could be applied more widely to Collaborative Consumption. The postage system on SwapTree that automatically calculates the United States Postal Service shipping cost

of Apple, Volkswagen, and Abercrombie & Fitch because these brands helped us create self-esteem and identity. Now we are latching onto the rising brands of Collaborative Consumption for similar reasons but through interactions and community, not mere shopping. Collaborative Consumption helps feed what Marilynn Brewer, a social psychologist at O

Members are given all the traditional benefits of joining a club: status, identity, shared interests, and ownership.