Walmart Executive and Environmentalist Team Up to Create a Marketplace for the “Sharing Economy” | MIT Technology Review

If you're going to San Francisco
Be sure to bring some flowers you can share

"Their company, Yerdle, launched in San Francisco in November—on Black Friday—and in New York a month ago. A person logs in through Facebook and enters a well-designed marketplace populated by photos of items their friends and their friends’ friends would like to give away or loan them for free.
The idea is that people will check Yerdle before making a new purchase, and might pay Yerdle to get a shipment from a friend. The $200 billion figure is the pair’s own estimate of the percentage of the $1 trillion in durable retail goods purchased in the U.S. each year that might instead be sourced from an individual’s own extended online social network. When I signed in I saw things like a colander, a PlayStation, and a “giant litter box.”"

Walmart Executive and Environmentalist Team Up to Create a Marketplace for the “Sharing Economy” | MIT Technology Review