Today, general item sharing platform Neighborgoods announced that it will close July 31, 2012 after a three year attempt to get traction (update: Neighborgoods is becoming Favortree). It’s an open secret in the sharing community that neighborhood-scale general item sharing is a tough play. In fact, this was the subject of June's Collaborative Chats, "Stuff-Sharing: Where's the Traction?" which just happened to feature tireless Neighborgoods founder, Micki Krimmel, among others.
I know from experience how tough the most commonsense play in sharing is. Neighbors should want to share their everyday stuff and save money, right? Does everyone in the 'hood need their own lawnmower, ladder, and leaf blower? No, but of the dozens of neighborhood sharing sites launched since I co-founded Shareable in 2009, I only know one with traction - Zilok in France, and I’ve heard this is on the strength of their peer-to-peer real estate and car rental transactions.
My experience also includes working on two failed sharing sites, Moogul.com and Divvy.com. The former launched in 2004. It was tough then, and it’s still tough today even after the breakout of Airbnb and their ilk have made sharing resources a familiar idea.
What makes it so tough?
First, there’s little financial incentive to share low-value items like the proverbial drill. The success of Airbnb and peer-to-peer car sharing tell the story from a different angle – plays in high-value asset classes have gotten the most traction by far. Secondly, while it’s a nice idea to share with neighbors, many people don’t know them or want to know them. Counter-intuitively, the most successful sharing marketplaces connect strangers. Thirdly, getting critical mass in a two-sided marketplace on a range of items in a single neighborhood or city is incredibly tough. It’s much easier to build two-sided marketplaces in a single, high-value asset class on a national or international scale a la Airbnb. Lastly, it’s tough because it takes time. Craigslist took almost a decade before it took off internationally.
Does this mean neighborhood sharing is a lost cause? No, because there’s a bunch of approaches that haven’t been tried yet. Below are five ideas on how to get neighbors to share their stuff:
The Tupperware of Sharing. This is the distributed rental shop model. Imagine running a rental shop out of your garage offering a limited selection of proven rental items like carpet steam cleaners with the support of a national brand and website. Now imagine an international network of such neighborhood micro-businesses. That’s the Tupperware model of neighborhood sharing.
Retail as a Gateway to Sharing. This scenario treats the point of purchase at major retailers as a gateway to collaborative marketplaces that manage products through multiple owners and users. Imagine that when you make a purchase, your item is automatically listed in an inventory with all your past purchases. Imagine that you can post any item from this inventory to a peer-to-peer marketplace with one click. Possible? Yes. Probable? Unfortunately not. Check here for why.
The Rental Shop Rollup. Quick, what’s the name of your local rental shop, you know, the place where you get bouncy castles and shop vacs? If you can't name one, you're not alone. I can't either. Perhaps it’s time for a national brand of rental shops? Even better if a rental shop rollup enabled peer-to-peer transactions as well as the traditional retail rental experience. Getable is doing something similar helping bring the inventory of rental shops to the web. But maybe Getable has it backwards? Maybe the first step is to create a national brand of rental shops, then bring inventory online?
Sharing Meets Community Organizing. This scenario takes a site like Neighborgoods and supports it with a team of community organizers that helps form sharing groups neighborhood by neighborhood. This isn’t scalable, but neither is building real relationships. I wish someone would apply this Saul Alinsky-style community organizing to neighborhood sharing. I’ve heard Yerdle may try this soon, a worthy experiment in my book.
Local Governments Champion Sharing. Local governments could help kick-start local, voluntary sharing. Local efforts are best led by citizens, but local government can play a role in facilitation, permits for sharing events, use of idle government real estate for exchanges, establishing sharing-friendly policies, and getting the word out. Governments, whether big or small, can create the conditions that make the choice to share a viable one. Everyone should be free to share. San Francisco's Sharing Economy Working Group maybe a start at this.
The bottom line is that there’s probably no technology shortcut to making sharing a part of everyday life in your ‘hood. It’ll likely take a lot of relationship building and time.
What are your ideas to get neighbors sharing everyday stuff?
Comments
TerraFirma wrote on 07.11.12, 11:14am:
When we tried loaning equipment like electric tillers and hand tools, we found people didn't return them at all, only after we called multiple times to remind them to please return the item, or returned them broken and blamed the tool. It was pretty sad. Are there any guides to the practical issues of renting/sharing?
Randy Scott White wrote on 07.11.12, 5:15pm:
Neal, you are spot on.
Bright Neighbor in its first iteration was conceived as a p2p platform for neighbors to share, barter, and exchange goods / services with or without money - it was 'anything goes'. Tomatoes traded for firewood. Chicken eggs for cash. Rototillers for ride shares. You name it.
Our experience and metrics with peer-to-peer, corporate employee, neighborhood, municipal, and project-based sharing have provided valuable market insights. We see these current sharing trends:
* Trending from desktop to mobile
* More acceptance of “less is more”
* Personal and business adoption based on better trust mechanisms
* Growth in peer-to-peer rentals
Eventually there will be a sharing API that allows a single search across multiple systems and sharing revenues for different business models implemented by various companies.
Our experience shows that the key to unlocking hyper-local sharing and exchanges is not only about trust, but adding incentives for people to go beyond their Facebook (and similar) networks.
Bright Neighbor in its new iteration a completely new product conceived and built to take our experience in the last platform and move it to a total mobile marketplace (http://brightneighbor.com/blog/36/Bright-Neighbor-P2P-Mobile-Rental--Sal...).
We invite the Shareable and Neighborgoods' communities to sign up for the Beta invite, open for iPhone, iPad, and Android devices at the end of July (www.mobile.brightneighbor.com).
Thank you Shareable for keeping the behavior and momentum moving forward. What a moment time to be in this space.
- Team Bright Neighbor
Anonymous wrote on 07.11.12, 10:05pm:
How about ohsowe.com? I haven't gone through the entire registration process yet.
I shared my car for 2 years and ran into predictable issues of who repairs what, who is responsible for what, and, ultimately, the "yes, it's still mine even though I lent it to you."
Lars Jorgensen wrote on 07.12.12, 9:40am:
I agree that what it takes lot's of time and community organizing to change peoples perspectives around consumption and sharing.
I too have been working on developing a website that enables sharing of not just goods, but knowledge and time as well. www.collaboratepdx.org It uses the Buddypress platform, which I think has a lot of promise for non-corporate social media.
The other key thing to keep in mind is that social media/sharing platforms are only half of the solution. They can be a great tool to facilitate sharing, but ultimately what we're all trying to do is build community. The best way to do that is face to face.
Micki Krimmel wrote on 07.12.12, 12:49pm:
I think the biggest hurdle to these services taking off is that every one is designed like a financial marketplace. That's what we did with NeighborGoods - we built the Amazon for borrowing. It's the logical place to start but we learned that model does not work. People share with friends and neighbors for social reasons - not financial reasons. The mechanisms to facilitate those transactions are fundamentally different as are the rewards.
Efficiency is not the issue. Platform is not the issue. We've all been looking at this all wrong! The question we should be answering is this: How do we design a system that encourages, rewards (and monetizes) SOCIAL TRANSACTIONS - this includes the sharing of items as well as favors.
I think we're on the right path with Favortree.com. And we're excited to bring our NeighborGoods community with us. :)
Randy Scott White wrote on 07.12.12, 2:37pm:
Micki,
These statements seem at odds with one another:
"People share with friends and neighbors for social reasons - not financial reasons." followed by "How do we design a system that encourages, rewards (and monetizes) SOCIAL TRANSACTIONS?"
Can we rally neighbors among a unifying reason? After all, if you have the money for something, you can still go out and just buy it. But what if the money system itself is flawed? http://youtu.be/lsmbWBpnCNk
What if upon the completion of any sharing exchange, the various sharing platforms adds money or phantom points (gamification) into a centralized prosecution fund set up to hire lawyers and capable citizens to arrest and prosecute corrupt banking and government officials?
Is there sufficient frustration among Americans to get active in sharing if the reward was the promise of a more fair and equitable future? After all, it's a corrupt and rigged banking system that is a major driver behind the haves and have nots.
But, that's my personal take on how to answer your question. A business answer to your question is:
In Bright Neighbor, when a member lends someone a book, DVD, hammer, whatever it is, the non-member borrower receives a receipt via e-mail verifying the details of the item lent to them. That e-mail receipt includes a link referring the Non-member to join the network.
When the Non-member joins, the member then gets 2% of that person's future sales and rentals made through the system.
Each member can earn up to $100,000 each, where it is capped. They can take the money, or donate it to charity - the point is to add enough of a carrot for people to want to lend things for free, but they have the option to make money if they need to / want to.
I support what you and all of the sharing platforms are doing since the very important mission we all share is critical for future generations to thrive. A the meaning of money, debt, obligations, ownership, and access continue to rapidly evolve, I look forward to seeing the success of channels that do gain traction in figuring out this monumental puzzle.
Mary Rick wrote on 07.12.12, 6:45pm:
Thanks for the article, Neal. You may also want to check-out Neighborland (https://neighborland.com/) as a good place to organize community spaces, projects, and potentially local sharing businesses. They're trying to launch in 5-6 cities right now and have a very simple platform.
Neal Gorenflo wrote on 07.13.12, 8:31am:
Wow, what a great conversation here with thoughtful comments from people with a lot of real world experience.
I see some exciting experiments here with mobile + favors / more general social interactions at the local scale. That makes a lot of sense. Mobile makes it easier to exchange plus there's more opportunities for neighbors to interact. I suspect that you have to get a lot of things going with neighbors for exchanges to continue of their own momentum.
Micki, really excited about your pivot to Favortree. Agree about the social reasons for exchanges. Not enough value financially, but huge value in creating local social networks. All kinds of good things can come from that that have also have tangible benefits. A neighborhood with a high level of social capital probably offers a higher quality of life.
Randy, just saw a demo of your new smartphone app, very cool!
Mary, congrats on Neighborland, simplicity is powerful. Craigslist is powered by simplicity and variety, some powerful lessons there.
Lars, cool use of buddypress, that makes a lot of sense.
Please stay in touch about your progress!
Neal Gorenflo wrote on 07.13.12, 8:45am:
Hi TerraFirma,
I'd check out the book, The Sharing Solution, but Janelle Orsi, a lawyer who specializes in helping people share. She's one of our regular writers.
She might say that good communication and agreements are useful to help people share and rent successfully.
One of the benefits of using an online platform for this is that they often have these built in as well as reputation systems that keep people accountable for their actions.
That said, you don't necessarily need that kind of technology. Old school technology of communication and agreements can work too.
-Neal
Neal Gorenflo wrote on 07.13.12, 9:28am:
I recommend everyone read Adam's post. It raises the salient issues and asks good questions.
Adam Walker wrote on 07.13.12, 10:38am:
Super conversation and some excellent points all round.
I'd first like to say that I think it is really important that we understand exactly why Neighborgoods have thrown in the towel, and I am not all convinced by some of the reasons cited.
For me the real tragedy is that come the end of July we will have lost a sharing platform that may have been tantalisingly close to answers about how best to organise social sharing. With the right strategy and management approach this large and committed user base of sharers may have yielded a lot of information about the future of the sharing economy.
Did Neighborgoods give up too easily?
http://www.sharehire.co.uk/what-didnt-go-right-at-neighborgoods/
Micki Krimmel wrote on 07.13.12, 10:47am:
I'm happy to share with anyone how we got here and what led to the decision to close NeighborGoods. I'm super easy to reach. Here's my email: micki@faovrtree.com. In the end, it's very simple. As we learned more about sharing systems and how to design them effectively, we headed in a different direction and Favortree was born. As a small company with limited resources, we cannot support both communities. Favortree enables members to share goods and skills more easily than NeighborGoods. For those of you continuing to work on the marketplace model, I wish you the best of luck.
Heather Villa wrote on 07.13.12, 12:54pm:
Last summer my neighbor planted arugula in his garden. He tasted it and detested it, while my family loved it! This summer he planted arugula just for us. How neighborly!
Heather Villa
Neal Gorenflo wrote on 07.13.12, 1:14pm:
Heather, you should share this story in our storytelling contest! It's easy to enter and you could win a $1000 credit for your fave sharing site or nonprofit. Learn more and enter here:
http://www.shareable.net/share-or-die-storytelling-contest#!/about
Heather Villa wrote on 07.13.12, 1:38pm:
Hello, Neal, It's often simple pleasures that turn into shared stories. In fact, I submitted another story to the Share or Die Storytelling Contest a few weeks ago. The beauty of the Shareable website and the sharing concept helps each of us notice the simple acts of kindness that surround us. Thank you!
Heather Villa
Micki Krimmel wrote on 07.17.12, 6:22pm:
This conversation, among others, inspired me to share our story about why we made the decision to shut down NeighborGoods and where we are headed with Favortree:
Juho Makkonen wrote on 07.17.12, 9:18pm:
This is a really great and important discussion!
While reading it I was reminded of this Mashable article on the sharing economy http://mashable.com/2012/02/07/sharing-economy/ and especially this quote by SnapGoods founder Ron J. Williams: "[Peer-to-peer marketplaces] are not driven by the ethos of sharing, but by the fact that people are making real money,” he says, cautioning startup founders from pushing the hippy-dippy movement message. “Most people are talking about this as a movement, but most people don’t care about movements. They care about convenience — people use ZipCar because it’s convenient."
These thoughts seem to be in contrast with Micki's thoughts. It's interesting how two peer-to-peer lending/rental platforms have come to the opposite conclusions based on their real world experience. Micki, any thoughts on this? Obviously it would also be interesting to hear how SnapGoods is doing traction-wise. :)
--
Juho is a Co-Founder and CEO of Sharetribe, a platform for creating custom peer-to-peer marketplaces. http://www.sharetribe.com
Neal Gorenflo wrote on 07.18.12, 8:44am:
Ron is right and also wrong. Some people care deeply about movements -- early adopters -- the most important group to kickstart adoption of new services and practices.
He's also right that the majority of people aren't persuaded by a values-based argument about sharing. They want to know how it's good for them.
That said, the recent Campbell Mithun study showed that the average person these days wants both value and meaning:
http://www.shareable.net/blog/study-finds-sharers-want-value-with-meaning
Kim Krichbaum wrote on 07.19.12, 12:52pm:
I recenlty have started two gift circles in Eugene. They have only met twice, but felt very successful in terms of turnout and amount of activity created. Here in Eugene, we also have an online gift resource called Kindista.org, which has the potential to knit togethere multiple gift circles.
We will have to see how this system works over time, but in it's short (2 month) life, I have experienced exchanges, some significant, in goods, services, and skills.
I think some of the reasons it is working well so far, is that in our gifting model, exchanges are not necessary just giving and receiving, and that makes working out details much easier. Also we had a workshop beforeour opening where we explored the interpersoanl skills needed for gift economy, and the emotional blocks many of us hold, and I think this freed us up to give more.
Neal Gorenflo wrote on 07.19.12, 12:55pm:
Very cool to hear Kim. Please keep in touch about your progress. And I invite you to write a story about it for our community blog.
-Neal Gorenflo
Publisher, Shareable
Jeff Edwards wrote on 07.20.12, 3:45pm:
Hi. This is such a fascinating discussion.
A few other ideas/thoughts:
* I'd like to see some shops that are like sharing facilitators, something like long-term storage meets rental shop. I don't know whether anything like this exists but it would great if you could put some old stuff "in storage" and the shop rents it out for you, earns some money back.
* Another idea is to have a home inventory app (web app?) where you can organise everything you own. Then you go through the list and label things based on whether you want to keep them (and keep them private), lend them out, rent them out, etc. This would get past having to really think about what other people might want, and it would also be useful even if noone else was using it.
If it was combined with some kind of social network you could log in and see a big list of what all your friends are willing to lend you.
One way to help neighbours share may be to concentrate on helping friends (who already trust each other) to share. Hopefully that would highlight the value of local friendships and would encourage us to make friends with more neighbours. Once we get to know and trust our neighbours, we feel more comfortable sharing and more comfortable asking to borrow.
Seth Schneider wrote on 07.20.12, 3:56pm:
Interesting idea for a storage/rental shop, Jeff. The U.S. (and other countries?) already has a huge amount of storage space, and the stuff just sits there. It would reduce consumption and generate some income if some of that stuff could be temporarily liberated. For me, camping gear and suitcases could fall into that category. While there would be a bunch of logistical issues to figure out, one appealing thing is that the storage/rental shop would be staffed many hours of the day, whereas when you try to borrow something through P2P sites you have to find a mutually-agreeable time to lend and then return the item.
Neal Gorenflo wrote on 07.20.12, 3:58pm:
Oh, can't believe I didn't mention the Share Exchange up in Santa Rosa, CA. It's like a community center for sharing:
Randy Scott White wrote on 07.20.12, 4:26pm:
Jeff Edwards,
You might want to see this sharing training video for a corporation doing just what you mention (employee-based sharing): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmcIZGAIZes
As for gaining traction in certain communities, one of the "crowds" that sharing (and waste reduction) is growing is in the US military:
http://www.oregonbusiness.com/linda/7790-a-soldiers-tale
This is a positive sign in the long-term economic, ecological, and political reality we face together.
Also, Juho - I saw this Sharing API column from a while back: http://www.shareable.net/blog/an-api-for-sharing
You are right on target and the "Orbitz Of Sharing" will be a massive value to aggregate all the systems coming online.
Nancy wrote on 07.31.12, 8:08pm:
Neal,
Great discussion. I guess as an online community we are becoming open -- and closed, at the same time. It makes so much economic sense to share. Take ZipCar, for example. I think the future belongs to niche sharing communities, especially for big ticket items.
Juho Makkonen wrote on 08.13.12, 11:18am:
This post inspired me to write about our "tribe" approach and how it might help in tackling the issues mentioned in this article: http://www.shareable.net/blog/using-tribes-to-enable-sharing-within-offl...
--
Juho is a Co-Founder and CEO of Sharetribe, a platform for creating custom peer-to-peer marketplaces. http://www.sharetribe.com
I work for a start-up company that is taking the community sharing idea to the fashion world. We are encouraging sharing of clothing via subscription to a closet of designer clothing. Rather than cheap fast fashion, by facilitating sharing, our members get higher quality clothing for less and don't have to take ownership of the clothing. We have been following the progress of fellow companies based on the "collaborative consumption" ideal and hope to emulate their success in sharing. Please feel free to check our our homepage and our tumblr for some of the clothing!
www.thesixosix.com
thesixosix.tumblr.com