![Over the past couple of years, we’ve followed the rise of NeighborGoods, the site that enables neighbors to share stuff. (Why buy a new drill that you might use only twice a year; instead, borrow one from a neighbor, and perhaps get to know that neighbor!)
NeighborGoods is among the collaborative consumption services we’ve mentioned a couple of times. It’s with some surprise to learn this news from the company:
Our team has very big news that we want to share with you. After three amazing years, 25,000 incredible neighbors and over $4.5 million of inventory being shared, NeighborGoods.net will be shutting its doors. We would like to share what this means for you and your account.
Over the next three weeks we will be preparing for our shutdown which will be happening July 31st. We strongly encourage you to complete any open transactions by this date. After today we will no longer be accepting group subscriptions or account verifications.
Although this is goodbye for NeighborGoods we are excited to announce that members of our team have created a brand new sharing tool, Favortree. Favortree is a ‘play it forward’ trading game [favor-trading game/app] for universities, faith communities and local neighborhoods. Members can help each other by sharing goods and completing small favors. By helping your friends and neighbors, you earn rewards which you can exchange for help when you need it.
Read the rest: Goodbye NeighborGoods; Hello Favortree!
“Shutting its doors,” with no explanation why? Anyone know?
Related: TheNextWeb post on the Favortree game/app.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m70apvuRsI1qzv12bo1_400.png)
Over the past couple of years, we’ve followed the rise of NeighborGoods, the site that enables neighbors to share stuff. (Why buy a new drill that you might use only twice a year; instead, borrow one from a neighbor, and perhaps get to know that neighbor!)
NeighborGoods is among the collaborative consumption services we’ve mentioned a couple of times. It’s with some surprise to learn this news from the company:
Our team has very big news that we want to share with you. After three amazing years, 25,000 incredible neighbors and over $4.5 million of inventory being shared, NeighborGoods.net will be shutting its doors. We would like to share what this means for you and your account.
Over the next three weeks we will be preparing for our shutdown which will be happening July 31st. We strongly encourage you to complete any open transactions by this date. After today we will no longer be accepting group subscriptions or account verifications.
Although this is goodbye for NeighborGoods we are excited to announce that members of our team have created a brand new sharing tool, Favortree. Favortree is a ‘play it forward’ trading game [favor-trading game/app] for universities, faith communities and local neighborhoods. Members can help each other by sharing goods and completing small favors. By helping your friends and neighbors, you earn rewards which you can exchange for help when you need it.
Read the rest: Goodbye NeighborGoods; Hello Favortree!
“Shutting its doors,” with no explanation why? Anyone know?
Why You Should Give Stuff To Your Neighbors
I was quite interested to read — via the link to Atlantic Cities above as well as on Science Daily — about research suggesting that “Freecycle generates feelings of group unity and cohesion [PDF] among the people who participate in it.”
Freecycle is the “hey I have this thing if you want it let me know” service that I wrote about some years ago, calling the underlying practice “unconsumption.” My interest then was: “It’s worth pondering whether getting rid of stuff can ever feel as good as getting it.” I more or less concluded the answer was Yes, and eventually that led to this very site you are reading right now.
Obviously we’ve gotten more expansive about what unconsumption means, but our advocacy of “creative reuse and mindful consumer behavior” still ties back to the very notions that these researchers have examined. Here’s a little more on their study:
Sociologists have long been intrigued by these kinds of benevolent “generalized exchange communities.” … What motivates people to participate in them?
“This old idea that gift-giving communities generate lots of solidarity, is it true and does it hold up outside of the lab?” asks Robb Willer, a sociologist at the University of California. “We found that it does.”
Freecycle generates feelings of group unity and cohesion [PDF] among the people who participate in it. “First, you sort of build this feeling of group identification,” Willer says. “Then you build this feeling of solidarity. Then after that you’re more motivated to give to the system.”
Interestingly, you don’t get the same benefits from participating on Craigslist, which is a more traditional type of “direct exchange system” based on the quid pro quo that you’ll give me something – probably cash – in return for my old love seat. The researchers drew their conclusions by conducting extensive surveys of hundreds of users of both of these networks.
We’re fans of free book exchanges, like the Little Free Libraries; the now-defunct-phone-booths-turned-mini-libraries (here, here, here, here, and here); shelves in London Tube and train stations and in airports that enable travelers to swap books; former newspaper racks; and a 1979 Ford transformed into a bookmobile from which free books are distributed in Buenos Aires, among others, that spring up in public spaces.
(We’re also fond of more traditional libraries that are housed in non-traditional settings like repurposed old buses and historic barns and churches.)
And now in Paris, there’s this communal book exchange sitting atop a tree cage:
Strasbourg-based street artist Florian Rivière is back with a new, neat urban intervention! Last weekend, Rivière installed a little library on a sidewalk near Gare du Nord … .
I don’t know if that’s a pallet or a crate (or both), but I like it!
See a couple of Riviere’s other urban interventions, a.k.a., “hacktions,” here.
(via Urban Hacktivist Launches Street Library — The Pop-Up City)
Weapon of Mass Instruction
Built from a welded frame atop a 1979 Ford Falcon, Raul Lemesoff drives around the streets of Buenos Aires distributing free books to anybody who wants to be assaulted with some serious learnin’.
(via: make / laughingsquid)
A mobile library (art car) that’s helping to foster an interest in both reading and sharing books in Argentina? Auto-reblog for Unconsumption’s celebration of book-things during National Library Week.
(via gillianmae)
Happy National Library Week — the annual celebration, led by the American Library Association, of all things library! This week, in honor of Library Week, we’ll feature a series of library- and book-related posts.
Today, the Unconsumption spotlight is on Little Free Libraries: community book exchanges — located in places like your neighbor’s front yard, and on college campuses and in hospitals — where library cards aren’t needed. The libraries’ basic concept is: “Take a book. Leave a book.”
Most of the “libraries,” which hold 20-30 donated books, are made from reclaimed materials. Each library, which has an official caretaker who builds and maintains it, is registered by the Little Free Library (LFL) project, with its location noted on the LFL Web site. So far, more than 200 little libraries have opened in 34 states and 17 countries.
The libraries not only provide a way for people to pass along books they no longer want, they also help foster a sense of community. In this NPR story on the Little Free Library project, a library user says: “there are all of these nice, little serendipitous connections that happen with your neighbors.” A library caretaker mentioned meeting, via her free library, neighbors who live a block away — neighbors she hadn’t met previously.
Through the non-profit project, LFL co-founders Todd Bol and Rick Brooks aim to promote literacy and love of reading; they also hope that more people (you, perhaps?) will contact them about opening free little libraries in their own communities!
See also:
- Earlier Unconsumption posts on various community-driven book swaps, including several operating out of old phone booths, plus other swapping-related projects and services here.
- More on sharing and the sharing economy / collaborative consumption, libraries, and books.
The Facebook of ride-sharing has arrived | Grist
Got a road trip coming up? Why not use Ridejoy to save yourself the gas money and maybe make a new friend in the process? The site’s a lot like apartment/room-share site AirBnB. It leverages the power of the web to connect people so that they can use their resources more efficiently — and, of course, save money in the process.
Here’s how it works. You post an upcoming road trip on the site, name your price (sharing the cost of the gas, say) and see who’s interested. Like AirBnB, connections to your real Facebook profile and reviews by others who have met you through the site help establish that you’re not an ax murderer or whatever.
Let us know if you use the site.
Related: Earlier Unconsumption posts on sharing-oriented programs and services here.
Old bus = new public library in Bulgaria.
Designed by Studio 8 1/2.
(via Old Bulgarian Trolleybus Transformed Into New Otets Paisiy Public Library | Inhabitat)
Via fastcompany:
A new survey by the American Library Association shows that 99.3% of public libraries offer free access to the web even if you don’t have a PC and 67% offer e-books. Summer just got a whole lot cooler.
Picture via guillermogg on Flickr
Related: Earlier Unconsumption post on libraries.
(via pewinternet)
Via curiositycounts:
Getaround – new social car-sharing service lets you rent out your own set of wheels and borrow others’, another fantastic way to have more by owning less.
Related: Earlier Unconsumption posts about various sharing programs and services, several of which are also peer-to-peer, here.
(via poptech)
In this video, friend of Unconsumption Alex Bogusky talks about bike-sharing and the launch of Boulder B-Cycle. It’s a nice little intro to the virtues of the bike, multiplied by the virtues of sharing.
B-Cycle mentioned on Unconsumption here; and here are previous posts on bikes, and bike sharing.
Have you heard about Givmo: a new Web site through which you can give away — for free — your unused or unwanted stuff? The only expense is incurred by the recipient of your item, who pays to have it shipped via UPS. Of course, you also can request/receive other people’s stuff through the site. (FAQ here.)
Givmo’s Shani Byrne tells us: “We’re trying to help solve the problem of “too much stuff,” while promoting a greener lifestyle for people. Our goal is to encourage people to recycle and use shared resources, which will help reduce the need for consumption as well as eliminate unnecessary waste.”
For each item given away, Givmo will donate $1 to a green charity or cause.
Let us know if you give Givmo a try!
New thrift store offers exchange, upcycling - The Brown Daily Herald
Two [Brown University] undergraduates have teamed up to create Brown’s first student-run thrift store, providing an outlet for students to donate, exchange and buy used goods. The Vault, which opened two weeks ago, was started by Hannah Winkler ‘13 and Tara Noble ‘12.5 in the hopes of providing various environmentally friendly ways for the community to handle unwanted items.
There are three components to the Vault — a thrift store, an item exchange and a workshop. The thrift store currently sells clothes, jewelry, books and other accessories donated by students, and Winkler said she also hopes to offer housewares in the future. For the item exchange, Brown students can bring in their unwanted clothing or other items to receive store credit for other goods in the thrift store.
The Vault is also unique in that it offers various workshops that align with Winkler and Noble’s goal of upcycling, a process that converts old or useless materials into items that have more value and a positive environmental impact.
The Vault offered a T-shirt workshop Monday in Salomon, where students could bring in used clothing and upcycle them into other items, such as bags or wristbands. Noble said other workshops are also planned for the future, on papermaking, repair-and-mending and seasonal workshops.
Would love to see student-entrepreneurs launch similar ventures on or near other college campuses.
