The impact of collaborative economy measured through internet search: Blablacar case study

Abstract

The sharing economy or collaborative economy is a new economic model that arouses sympathy among consumers, but is perceived by many traders as a clear competition or even a refuge from the shadow economy. The aim of this article is to demonstrate the reputation growth through the GQM (Goal - Question - Metric) methodology, having in mind the increasing demand for information through web search services associated with the sharing economy, such as: Blablacar. To achieve this end, first it has led a review of the literature on collaborative economy and after that the used methodologies were presented: the case study and the analysis method GQM. To get the data, it has been used two tools of word search analysis, Google Trends and Google Insights for Search, which evaluate the demand of search terms in internet. One of the conclusions obtained is that the tools provided by Google for the analysis of trends, based on research terms and the correlations between the searched terms, constitute a valid quantitative method of observation to study the search for information and, consequently, future searches of web services, in this case of the collaborative economy.