Rides, spare rooms, screw drivers, relationship advice, legal expertise and make-up tips. The list goes on and on and when it comes to possibilities for a sharing economy, we’re under the impression that our imaginations are the only limit.
But there is a glaring difference between sharing tangible resources, like lodging or car seats, and knowledge and advice. The level of trust towards the platform is even more crucial for knowledge sharing, said Fenda’s cofounder Zhu Xiaohua at TechCrunch Beijing on Monday. “You need to have those sharing knowledge trust your platform, and those seeking resources to trust the platform as well, if you have failing trust on either side, then it’s game over.”
The sharing economy in general is an emerging sector that is at the mercy of regulators, and the same is true, if not more so, in regards to knowledge sharing. “If you so much as put a toe out of line, that would be an immense regulation risk totally disqualifying you”, reminds Zhu.
His Fenda platform, an audio Quota–like platform had its services suspended by regulators in just 3 months after its highly successful launch, and returned a month later with some of the more sensational topics like celebrity gossip pared away, and added enhanced audio recognizing censorship abilities.
“Regulating the content on Fenda will of course be harder than censoring written content, but not exponentially so, and is make possible with the technology today (voice recognition, he means) it also takes a bit of manual labor, but so far it’s not a huge impediment for ur company,” admits Zhu.
Also speaking at the panel was Zou Zhiwei, of Qianbei, an expert consulting telephone service. He believes that above all, knowledge sharing platforms should strive to solve problems, regardless of the means and the product. “We don’s want to emphasize the product, but to keep it as light and simple as possible, even if its just a QR code, or the expert solves problems by replying through SMS. We’re here to solve problems, not to linger on form.”
Sometimes the line between knowledge sharing and social networking may blur, and Fenda warns against stepping on the toes of an established behemoth. “Never try to build your business on the core area of a tech giant, that would only mean death. If you’re doing plain SNS, a giant will tear you to shreds, but working on something like knowledge sharing, they actually are grateful to you for complementing their service. ”