the brave new economy

A free(er) market is emerging and has been emerging ever since the advent of the Internet and the Web. Newer technologies have accelerated this. Old inefficiencies in knowledge and access to the market are quickly disappearing. Participation is increasingly peer-to-peer (P2P). Participants can produce, create, curate, give, lend, sell, share, auction, consume, take, borrow, buy, reuse, rent and/or barter goods, services, cash, credit, currency, equity, debt and/or knowledge. The resultant economy is highly collaborative and is sometimes referred to as the ‘sharing economy’. Efficiencies are being introduced and value is being created in the smallest of markets. Non-profit activities are thriving as well, in addition to for-profit ones. The marketplace is becoming, at once, global and local. An important subset of the new economy is collaborative and crowdsourced, and may be described as commons-based peer production. Asymmetries in information are diminished by algorithms (Google, of course), social networking  & media (Facebook, Twitter), social bookmarking (pinterest, reddit, StumbleUpon, digg, del.icio.us, Slashdot, etc.) and crowdsourced knowledge sharing, review and Q/A platforms (wikipedia, stackoverflow, quora, yelp, tripadvisor, zagat, etc.). While some e-commerce and P2P-commerce tools and enabling technologies (Amazon, eBay, PayPal, craigslist, etc.) hearken back to the earliest days of the Web, many others have flourished in the new Web 2.0 ecosystem of social apps and mobile access.

What follows immediately below is an attempt to categorize and list, in no particular order and without attempting to be exhaustive, some useful new tools and platforms that enable this new economy. In general, these tools and platforms tend to be open, social and peer-to-peer. Special sub-sections are then devoted to P2P finance, in all its forms, and to crowdsourced science.

• P2P hospitality exchange & short-term property rentals: airbnb, HomeAway, VRBO, roomorama, couchsurfing and The Hospitality Club; for general information, see here.
• Massive open online courseware (MOOC): udacity, coursera,edX and MRUniversity (economics focused). The Saylor Foundation is esp. important in this regard, esp. in its promotion and development of open educational resources and open textbooks. skilledup.com and coursebuffet serve as aggregators/search-engines for this area.
• Online video lectures / talks / textbooks: Khan Academy, MIT OCW, open.michigan, FORA.tv, TED, Academic Earth, videolectures.net, Flat World Knowledge, curriki, connexions and Chegg
• P2P ridesharing/carsharing/carpooling: relayrides, flywheel, uber, tickengo, weroll, sidecar, lyft, zimride, getaround and rent2buy/higear; for general information, see here.
• Other notable P2P commerce examples : Loosecubes, Vayable and Venuetastic
• P2P renting: zilok, snapgoods, toolspinner, Liquid, poshmark, Fon, rentalic, krrb, neighborgoods, sharehammer
• Crowdsourcing
• of cognitive/technical tasks & freelancing: mechanical turk, innocentive, crowdSPRING, skillshare, elance, freelancer, oDesk, Microtask, guru and uservoice
• of physical errands, tasks/chores and services: zaarly, taskrabbit, gigwalk and EzCater
• crowdsourced mapping: crowdmap and eStrategy partners
• crowdsourced public policymaking, budgeting, public safety and governance: popularise. constitutional reform in Iceland, #AskChicago, challenge.gov, Open Government Partnership
• for a more complete list, see here.

P2P finance

A significant and growing number of people are increasingly interested in being personally invested in their own investments, loans and charitable giving. Prominent concerns include accountability, investing ethically, investing locally, investing according to one’s values, investing for social impact, giving personally and giving responsibly. The range of financial transactions span donations to loans and investments, where risk sharing and transference can be all or nothing and everything in between.

To address the above needs, a plethora of P2P finance platforms have appeared on the scene. They are described variously under the categories of crowdfunding, P2P investing, P2P lending and P2P charitable giving. They take their inspiration from both classical institutions of online charitable giving (World Vision, Compassion International, etc.) and from microfinance -- with Grameen Bank (which predated the Web by at least a decade) being the archetypal and most notable example. They are being used variously for small business enterprises, social enterprises, philanthropic work, citizen science, citizen journalism and personal projects.

Organization	Founding, HQ, Revenue, #Employees, Market	Type	Value-add?	Issues?
Lending Club	2006, San Francisco, 28.6M, USA,	p2p lending	Undercut market debt-interest rate (7% APR onwards)
Prosper Marketplace	2005, San Francisco, , 75, USA	“	“
Grameen Bank	1983, Dhaka, 176M, 22149, Bangladesh	microfinance
Grameen America	2008, New York, , , USA	microcredit<![if !supportFootnotes]>[1]<![endif]>	501(c)(3) non-profit; urban impoverished women in inner-city USA – savings, credit establishment, financial education
Kiva	2005, San Francisco, 11.5M, 109, world-wide	microcredit	501(c)(3) non-profit; Kiva itself does not collect interest. KivaZip.org gives 0% direct loans to entrepreneurs	MFIs that actually make the loan charge extremely high interest
GlobalGiving	2002, Washington D.C., , , world-wide	crowdfunding	501(c)(3) non-profit;	15% transaction fee
zidisha	2009, Sterline VA, , , world-wide	p2p microfinance	501(c)(3) non-profit; loan repayment performance comparable to MFI-mediated approach; costs lower
vittana	2008, Seattle, , , world-wide	student loans microfinance	501(c)(3) non-profit; excellent loan repayment performance	repayment after landing a job (moral-hazard?); targeted funding takes away agency?
Rang De	2008, Bangalore, , 20, India	microcredit	non-profit; 1% transaction cost (with 0.5% set aside for default protection); 8.5% interest among lowest	8.5% interest – 4%-5% for field partners and 2% for creditor
milaap	2010, Singapore, , , India (NRIs can support)	microcredit	5% fee is charged field partners (entire loan is given to recipient)	12%-18% interest
Energy in Common	2009, , , , world-wide	microcredit for renewable energy tech	501(c)(3) non-profit; 0% loans; carbon offsets; nanoloans
zopa	2005, London	p2p lending
RateSetter	2009, London, , , UK?	p2p lending
FundingCircle	2010, London, , , UK?	p2p lending	Lending to small and medium businesses	average return of 5.8% after fees and bad debt
Assetz Capital	2012, London, , , UK?	p2p lending	Lending to SME & property developers
Fundly	2009	crowdfunding
GiveForward	2008, Chicago	medical crowdfunding		7% fee
GoFundMe	2010, San Diego	crowdfunding for life-changing events (medical, graduations, etc.)		5% fee
Indiegogo	2008, San Francisco	crowdfunding	4% fee for successful campaigns; 9% for keeping funds from unsuccessful ones; 0% for returning money
kickstarter	2009, New York	crowdfunding	Funds disbursed only if goal met	5% fee for kickstarter; 3%-5% more for Amazon Payments
microryza	2012, Seattle	crowdfunding scientific research	Funds disbursed only if goal met	5% fee for microryza; 3% more for payment processing
neighbor.ly		civic crowdfunding	ONLY civic agents (governments, public-private partnerships, NGOs) can list projects; refund (minus fees) if project not funded or green-lighted or launched	5% fee for neighbor.ly + fees for bank transfers
RALLY.org	2009 (2011 rebranding), San Francisco (formerly, Austin)	crowdfunding	all donated money is kept	5.75% fee
RocketHub	2010	crowdfunding	4% fee + 4% payment processing fee for successful campaigns; 8% fee + 4% payment processing fee for keeping funds from unsuccessful ones
YouCaring		crowdfunding for medical, adoption,  missions & tuition	0% commission; 3% payment processing; donation model of revenue; all donated money is kept
bolstr	2012, , , , Chicago	equity crowdfunding for small/local businesses	No fee	only for accredited investors<![if !supportFootnotes]>[2]<![endif]>
MicroVentures	2010	equity crowdfunding	startups	only for accredited investors
RockThePost	2012	equity crowdfunding	startups	only for accredited investors
wefunder	2011	equity criwdfunding	startups	only for accredited investors
AngelList	2010	equity & debt crowdfunding	startups	only for accredited investors
smallknot		crowdfunding local small businesses	3% commission (for successful campaigns) + 3% payment processing fee; rewards/perks instead of equity
TODO: Mosaic, somolend, pledgie, artistshare, sellaband

A good comparison of many crowdfunding and P2P finance platforms and tools may be found here. The crowdfunding blog seeks to maintain an exhaustive directory of online crowdfunding. Two comprehensive lists may be found here and here.

Physic Ventures and Collaborative Fund focus on building investment portfolios mainly or exclusively focussed on the share economy.

Slowmoney (see also credibles) connects capital with sustainable and small local farming and food systems. BALLE (bealocalist) focusses on education, networking and advocacy for sustainable and local-centric economies. The Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment provides similar education, research and thought leadership.

Larger investments and sources of capital may be leveraged by accredited investors on platforms like AngelList to support startups. Investors’ Circle is a similar network of accredited angel investors, focussing on for-profit enterprises that produce and maximize positive social and environmental impact. MicroPlace is similarly interested in positive-impact investments, specifically in poverty alleviation around the world. It focusses on portfolios using microfinanced securities and is open to un-accredited micro-investors.

Inventors and makers are the focus of quirky, while innovative solutions, ideas and products are pitched using FundaGeek.

Three crowdfunding sites dedicated to science are experiment.com, sciflies and scifundchallenge.

The World Bank recently released a report on crowdfunding's potential for the developing world.

crowdability is a great aggregator and search-engine for equity crowdfunding portals.

Decentralized, digital money

The currency of the new economy is increasingly electronic and, in particular, is taking the form of alternative digital currency. Chief among these are cryptocurrencies, popularized recently by Bitcoin. These currencies tend to be peer-to-peer and decentralized. A full list of digital currencies may be seen here. A sub-category of digital currency, noteworthy in its own right, is digital gold currency. Digital currency exchangers function as markets of exchange between different digital currencies and/or between digital currencies and national fiat currencies.

Crowdsourced & open science

The increase in and increasingly easy access to cognitive surplus and volunteer computing, owing to the surplus of computing resources, are being leveraged to attempt to solve big mathematical, scientific and engineering challenges.

Metaphorically described as the global brain, this surplus is significant and dispersed across the globe. Two examples are GalaxyZoo, an attempt to do morphological classification of galaxies on a large scale, using cognitive surplus, and Folding@Home, a massively distributed computing based research project on protein folding and computational drug design.

Volunteer computing was pioneered by the SETI@home project, run by Berkley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC), which is now the most widely used infrastructure for such projects. Astronomy projects hosted there include Einstein@home and Milkyway@home. A more fuller list may be seen here.

An important facet of this new movement is massive collaboration and openness. Known as open science or Science 2.0, the scientific activities and consequent results of these endeavors are typically highly collaborative and open, and the raw data, experimental data and results are freely and widely available.

The free and open source software movement (FOSS) may be seen as the pioneering symbol of this revolution, and, in many ways, as the forebear of the new economy, by virtue of FOSS being critical to the development of the latter’s enabling software technologies. The open movement is now broader and encompasses the whole scope of scientific inquiry and knowledge production.

The emergence of wikipedia signalled that knowledge could be produced in a widely distributed fashion. Massively distributed iterative improvements on a massive scale, sometimes called the wisdom of the crowd, would lead to maintenance of quality -- a function that was once thought to be the exclusive domain of rigorous peer-review by experts.

The growing opposition to copyrights and circulation restrictions of scientific articles crystallized in a recent movement within academia, dubbed Academic Spring. This has led to the proliferation of open access journals. A more complete list may be seen here.

The Polymath Project is a recently started approach to conduct massively collaborative mathematics.

Related Reading

Two books:

1. the mesh by Lisa Gansky
2. What’s Mine is Yours by Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers

Websites:

1. the crowd cafe