The eBay effect
If a stranger said: ‘Give me £500 and I’ll send you a camera’, most of us would have trouble trusting him. But such transactions happen every second on auction site eBay. ‘We are willing to take the risk and that’s changing the way we do business,’ says Gartner analyst Steve Prentice. Zopa already uses the eBay model to sell loans. So, why not for mortgages?
The blogosphere
Everyone can be a critic and an expert. Wikipedia describes the blogosphere as a social phenomenon, helping form a internet-wide social network by linking individual blogs.
Social networking sites
Sites such as MySpace allow individuals to share personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music, and videos. Popstar Lily Allen famously hit the big-time after placing songs on MySpace. YouTube uses a similar format for video clips, while LinkedIn is a social networking site for business people.
Second Life
The virtual 3D world that is creating new opportunities for businesses and individuals. Reuters has its own virtual correspondent in Second Life, Sun and IBM have held events in the site and Toyota and Adidas have launched products.
Consumer-led, but is making inroads into the corporate world, offering all kinds of services that would have seemed unthinkable even just a couple of years ago, such as Google Desktop.
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