THE BEST SHARING ECONOMY APPS Analyzing the Quality of U.S

ARC 360 REPORT • JUN. 2015

THE BEST SHARING ECONOMY APPS Analyzing the quality of U.S. sharing economy apps as rated by their customers

By Ben Gray

59 The average app quality score of the 48 most popular sharing economy apps in Google Play and iTunes App Store, on a 100-point scale.

Mobile Apps Power The Sharing Economy

et us congratulate Merriam-Webster’s graduating class of 2015: twerking, WTF, jeggings, sharing economy and NSFW. It won’t be easy to predict which will have the most profound world impact (hint: neither twerking nor jeggings) but the sharing economy is here to stay. With brands like Lyft, Airbnb and Uber valued at $2.5, $20 and $50 billion, respectively, the opportunities for sharing economy brands that can deliver socially-conscious, useful, convenient and easy experiences are endless and lucrative. Applause, the 360º app quality company, has for the first time analyzed the state of app quality in the U.S. as rated by customers of the 48 most popular sharing economy brands by app store review count.

1 8 Popular Brands Earn High Quality Marks

ARC 360 from Applause authored this report on the state of app quality in the U.S. sharing economy to help brands understand how customers perceive their app quality. In all, 48 apps qualified for our inaugural Applause Sharing Economy PRICE WATERHOUSE COOPERS App Quality Index, which Predicts the global revenues is comprised of the apps of the sharing economy to that earned more than 150 reach $335 billion in 2025, up app store reviews—totaling from $15 billion in 2014. nearly one million reviews.

This report was inspired by the Collaborative Economy Honeycomb (see Figure 1) by Jeremiah Owyang, Founder of Crowd Companies. Better luck next year to the more than 9,000 sharing economy startups, according to Crowd Companies.

Just eight sharing economy apps earned quality scores of 70 or above with more than 1,000 user reviews:

2 figure 1 Collaborative Economy Honeycomb Version 2.0 By Jeremiah Owyang

This image is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share A Like 2.0 Generic License. It is attributed to Jeremiah Owyang, and the original can be found here.

3 Some Sharing Economy Apps Must Improve

On average, the 48 most popular U.S. sharing economy apps lag all other apps in quality by 8 points (see Figure 2). This suggests customers are quick to judge quality based on their initial signup and search of an app. Privacy is a particular concern for apps in the sharing economy.

Reviews of sharing economy apps (which also go by the collaborative or service economy monikers) may also reflect the level of service of user experiences. If a person uses an app to get their house cleaned but the house is still filthy, the user may leave a negative review.

Uber, the runaway leader in the sharing economy, has mixed user reviews. Its Applause Analytics score of 67 for its iOS app is about equal to the average of all apps. Uber’s Android score of 51 leaves much to be desired.

Six brands received more than 1,000 reviews and were rated by their customers with average app quality scores less than 50:

Users of sharing economy apps have lofty expectations when it comes to their app’s elegance, privacy, content and interoperability.

4 figure 2 Applause Sharing Economy App Quality Index

APPLAUSE SHARING ECONOMY APP QUALITY INDEX

AVERAGE ANDROID IOS SCORE POOR FAIR GOOD EXCELLENT WINNING REVIEWS REVIEWS

Tilt** 96 N/A 181 Rent the Runway** 94 N/A 1,359 Shyp 91 23 185 The Serval Mesh* 84 235 N/A Waze 83 194,928 127,048 Twice 81 461 663 Hailo 76 7,277 748 Instacart 75 484 855 Udacity 75 969 319 Indiegogo 74 118 116 thredUP 73 1,415 1,344 The RealReal** 71 N/A 158 Fiverr 70 6,034 1,350 Poshmark 69 2,522 5,160 Listia 69 10,514 4,281 Life360 68 37,497 19,747 Instructables 68 1,170 207 craigslist 68 48,521 37,468 Zipcar 68 7,871 6,811 Coursera 68 3,476 1,220 Munchery 66 51 486 Freelancer 64 984 25 eBay 63 142,425 57,616 Khan Academy** 63 N/A 1,206 RelayRides 61 146 251 Kijiji 61 10,674 203 Lyft 60 9,693 5,136 Airbnb 60 4,792 3,901 Uber 59 28,216 14,270 Getaround 57 27 296 Chegg 57 900 25,886 HomeAway 55 1,279 1,122 BlaBlaCar* 55 2,407 N/A Yerdle 52 72 717 Sidecar 52 686 428 Open Garden* 52 2,895 N/A Ola cabs** 51 23,435 96 Tradesy 51 N/A 557 Postmates 48 363 651 DriveNow 46 139 11 Couchsurﬁng 44 1,292 528 Etsy 43 6,487 3,362 Threadﬂip 43 170 1,121 TaskRabbit 37 195 672 Kickstarter** 36 N/A 1,341 FireChat 28 2,218 502 Fon 28 195 17 Elance 17 611 123

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

*ANDROID ONLY **IOS ONLY SOURCE: APPLAUSE ANALYTICS, JUNE 3, 2015 AVG. SCORE ANDROID IOS

5 About ARC 360

ARC 360 from Applause is a research group dedicated to providing insights and data on the apps economy. ARC 360 leverages data from a variety of sources, including proprietary Applause data, to provide a 360º view of app quality. ARC 360 combines this data, with analysis, into reports to help brands and app developers understand what is happening in the apps economy.

Learn more at http://arc.applause.com.

About Applause Analytics

Combing through half a billion ratings and user reviews submitted across more than 30 million apps in the Android and iOS app stores around the world, Applause Analytics closes the gap between mobile app developers and their customers, generating actionable insights and quantifiable metrics based on what users are actually saying about their app experiences.

Learn more at www.applause.com/analytics.