The Clean and Green Club

Web 2.0 is a lot more than social networking sites. Here’s a great example: LaborFair.com uses Amazon-like Web 2.0 features to build a database of service providers based on reputation. Founder Jenna Raby started the service as a kind of domestic arm of the fair trade movement, with a specific stated goal of helping people in the lowest economic strata pull themselves up out of poverty.

Her site plays matchmaker between consumers and often-underpaid workers such as housekeepers and gardeners (as well as much higher paid specialists such as web designers and event planers).

Hiring through LaborFair, a consumer pays a living wage, directly to the service provider–a much greater wage than typically paid by an agency, although less than the consumer would have paid that agency.

So…the consumer saves money, the service provider gets paid more, and the choice is made on the basis of trust-building features like reports back from actual consumers about the quality of service.

LaborFair supports itself by charging the service provider a small fee: either $5 per job accepted or $25 per month for unlimited matches.

Fairly well established in the Bay Area, the service has just begun expanding into Las Angeles, Presumably, it will spread organically to other parts of the country.

(My thanks to my friend Kare Anderson for steering me to Jenna)