TimeRepublik (link is external) is Mechanical Turk>Burning Man>TaskRabbit>"In Time". Which is a great idea. But there's a big grammatical error on the home page, and a creepy Randian reference to "merit", plus we don't trust anyone who uses the word "Republic", especially with an ironic K.
WeCanBeHero.es (link is external) crowdfunds/sells shares in dreams like owning a tropical island or racehorse. "Co-dreaming". Which sounds amazing, but their site totally isn't working yet. Also, if they don't give explicit credit to Bowie and Eno (link is external) for the name, they suck.
The anthropomorphized telepresence object, The Good Night Lamp (link is external), is the strong contender of these three standouts. It's gotten a simply ridiculous amount of press for something that does so little, from Apartment Therapy (link is external) to Russell Davies' hilariously named post, "The Internet of Middle-Class Things (link is external)". We know the secret to selling new technology is to dumb it down, make it friendly, divorce it from its implications. This lamp is so sleekly designed, you forget its essential stalkeryness.
This year's London Le Web says it's where the "leaders of the sharing economy are converging", and yet highlights presenters from Airbnb, Zipcar, and Etsy- all for-profit businesses.
Etsy is certainly doing a lot to end my consumerism- by taking ALL MY MONEEZ! Well, whatever, there's no doubt that some "movement represents a major economic, social and cultural shift" and something "is redefining the ways goods and services are exchanged, valued and created."
Calling it the sharing economy and putting ad-supported reputation economy businesses like Yelp in the same wheelhouse as regulatory-evasion businesses (link is external) like (link is external) Airbnb and (link is external) Uber is confusing, though. Also, Larry Harvey is presenting at Le Web, and that's just funny. He's part of the "Digital Hippies" track, along with John Perry Barlow.
Follow the news with Memeburn's Storify thread (link is external) - some great images, and tweets from Pets.Com Sock Puppet (link is external), which may be the best Twitter handle ever.
Here's Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson's talk - we'll have more thoughts on Le Web next week, when the dust has settled a bit.