Designing an Ontology-Based Web Directory for the Discovery of Sharing and Collaborative Consumption Platforms

A vast number of peer-to-peer (P2P) sharing and collaborative consumption (SCC) platforms has emerged over the last decade. These platforms allow private individuals to share their physical resources, such as vehicles, spaces, food, clothing, gear and even pets, with other private persons. The large number and diversity of the platforms make it difficult for potential peer-consumers and peer-providers to find an appropriate platform for their demands or offers. This research therefore designs an ontology-based web directory which facilitates an effective discovery of P2P SCC platforms. The paper includes three major contributions. First, we formalize concepts identified in the SCC literature by means of a description language. Second, we develop an ontology that provides a means to purposefully describe the domain of SCC platforms. Third, we describe the design of a web directory that uses the ontology to make discovering P2P SCC platforms more approachable.