New App issue: Tech haves vs. have-nots? Feel less comfortable USING or BEING an instant temp in “on-demand economy”?

Apps - emerging issues: tech haves/have-nots & new "fundamental issue of intimacy"  

Do you feel less comfortable using or being an instant temp?  Do we need an app for guilt?

See excerpts below from "Commander of the Apps, Except the One for Guilt"   

and join us online for: 

“There's an App for That 2.0" Sept 28, 2012  2pm ET - TLT Group's FridayLive! online free to all who register in advance #TLTGfrlv  

"What couldn’t I do, what problems couldn’t be solved, with the tap of an app? ..."Then I remembered a service called Lyft. I pulled out my smartphone and quickly downloaded the application, which lets regular people act as chauffeurs for a fee. As instructed, I entered my location — then crossed my fingers and waited."Five anxious minutes later, a clean black Audi pulled up, with a chatty young man at the wheel."

More excerpts below from 

"Commander of the Apps, Except the One for Guilt" By Jenna Wortham, published online September 22, 2012 

Also published in print September 23, 2012, p. BU4 of NY edition of the New York Times with the headline: "Commander of the Apps, Except the One for Guilt"

...

"No doubt these services are helpful; in all three instances, they were lifesavers. This emerging on-demand economy, made up of a wave of mobile applications and services, is certainly convenient. It is intended to deliver almost anything you need or want with the flick of a finger, if you have a smartphone and the cash to spare. A game changer? Definitely.

"But are there murkier issues, about the haves and have-nots in a tech world, lurking just below the surface? I certainly felt uneasy about how simple it was to command an army of mobile helpers via my phone.

...

"'There's a fundamental issue of intimacy,' said Susan Etlinger, an analyst at the Altimeter Group, who advises companies on how best to use the Web in their business. 'Will people feel safe and comfortable on a larger scale? They'll have to do more of what Airbnb has done, spread the word about how well regulated and managed the service is. But even then, there's always tension between the

person who is the employer and the person who is the employee that could turn users off.'

...

"...small businesses, she said, could scale back on staff or even office space by using on-demand services like Exec and TaskRabbit, which also help find people to perform errands on the spot.

“'There has always been a demand for people who will do odd jobs,' said Kartik Hosanagar, a professor of online commerce at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. 'There probably always was a good amount of supply as well, although that supply has increased dramatically since the 2008 recession. However, there wasn’t an efficient way to match supply and demand previously.'"

IMAGE selected by Steve Gilbert 20120924

"The Ellen Strange Cairn. ...reputedly marks the site where Ellen Strange was murdered by her husband (or lover in some reports) in about 1750. The stone was added in 1978...The Cairn is approximately 8 feet in diameter and 5 feet high with the custom being for anyone passing to add another stone;"  Date 1988, Source From geograph.org.uk Author Ed Hodgkinson

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f1/The_Ellen_Strange_Cairn_-_geograph.org.uk_-_85066.jpg

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AThe_Ellen_Strange_Cairn_-_geograph.org.uk_-_85066.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f1/The_Ellen_Strange_Cairn_-_geograph.org.uk_-_85066.jpg

Ed Hodgkinson [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

This image was taken from the Geograph project collection. See this photograph's page on the Geograph website for the photographer's contact details. The copyright on this image is owned by Ed Hodgkinson and is licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.