A Day in the Life of the Collaborative Economy

The Collaborative Economy is expanding to the point that it begun to reach people outside of major metropolitan areas. But even the larger part of the crowd is typically unaware of what the Collaborative Economy does in a single day. Jeremiah Owyang, Chief Catalyst at Catalyst Companies has designed an infographic that opens our eyes to the awakening giant that is disrupting traditional business models to introduce heretofore unrealized sharing and convenience into our daily lives. Read more.

Instacart Brings Whole Foods Closer to Consumers

Instacart and Whole Foods have rolled out a pilot pickup and delivery program in Austin, TX and Boston. The pilot program will pave the way for providing the Instacart options in all of the cities the shopping currently serves. The initial plan offers online or mobile shopping for either delivery within a one-two hour window or for pickup at the store on the way home from work. Whole Foods will be the first national chain to link with the Instacart app for in-store pickup. Expect Instacart to expand its availability to all cities where Whole Foods has locations. Read more.

Olaf Diegel Makes Music with 3D Printing

Olaf Diegel is a professor at Lund University in Malmo, Sweden. He has blended his passions for music and design in quite an unexpected way. He is designing and creating quality, working musical instruments using 3D printing. An MSN video report features a four-piece band with members playing 3D-printed keyboards, bass and electric guitars, and drums. Diegel is able to print uniquely interesting instruments that produce professional quality music. The flexibility of the 3D design and printing process affords Diegel the opportunity to achieve the feel and balance that any single user would like. Heretofore, only superstars could afford custom-crafted instruments. Read more.

Crowdsourcing and Supercomputers Combating Ebola

Sierra Leone may be one of the last places on earth where one would expect to see crowdsourcing (or supercomputers) in action, but necessity is till the mother of invention. IBM Research and Sierra Leone’s Open Government Initiative (OGI), in partnership with Airtel, Cambridge University’s Africa’s Voices radio project, and Kenya’s Echo Mobile, have created a new platform that lets the government and citizens communicate via radio, text and voice messaging, and then deploys sophisticated analytics to find useful trends from the data. This shared-solutions approach is creating “an Africanized solution” to prevent the spread of the deadly Ebola virus. And it is working. Read more.

AdmitSee Brings Transparency to College Admissions

A great deal of the information that would make the decision-making process easier for college applicants, even post-graduate, has been unavailable. For instance, university’s have databases full of information that helps them to know how much leverage they have with an applicant. College admissions is a business. For instance, Admissions Officers don’t want to put more bait on the hook if they know that it’s already firmly embedded in the jaw of the applicant. AdmitSee is an information aggregator built on a social media platform that utilizes one segment of the crowd to better inform another. Read more.

EquityEats Enters Equity Crowdfunding Arena

EquityEats launched on October 27, 2014. It is the first crowdfunding website designed exclusively for financing restaurants. The brainchild of Johann Moonesinghe offers investors a piece of the pie. He developed the idea “to make it easier for entrepreneurs without rich uncles or millionaire friend to fund their ideas.” Based in Washington, DC, EquityEats proposes a well-conceived concept that works to everyone’s benefit. Anyone who believes enough to invest will not only participate in the restaurant’s earnings, but will most likely have a special appetite that only that investment can satisfy. The crowd both funds and frequents the restaurants. The investor base also becomes the customer base. Read more.