9 Elements of Digital Citizenship

Harnessing social capital

Dictionary.com. (2019) describes social capital as ‘the interpersonal relationships, institutions, and other social assets of a society or group that can be used to gain advantage’. Facebook, Uber and Airbnb have harnessed this power to grow their companies’ images online.

The convenience of being able to download an application where a taxi can collect you from a location and drop you off at your destination is a revolutionary advantage in commuting. Uber connects people to essential services via technology in the palm of your hand. In this country we currently face a high unemployment rate, Uber has helped to alleviate this by creating owner driver run businesses. The company Uber takes a percentage of the fare and the balance is paid to the driver.

 Facebook has created a social network that connects people to old friends and acquaintances, including family in all parts of the world. Facebook makes its money from the sales of advertising on its app ‘with more than 1 billion a quarter on advertising revenue (Business Management Degree.net 2012)

‘With listings in over 65,000 cities spread out in more than 191 countries, Airbnb’s reputation and revenues have rapidly grown. The primary source of Airbnb’s revenue comes from service fees from bookings’ (investopedia.com 2019). Airbnb connects buyers to sellers, it is a platform for home owners to rent out their residential property to travelers. This is referred to as a peer to peer to peer economy.

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