Quadrant #2: Implicit space + Explicit time

VACATION HOME RENTALS

Industry overview
Most Vacation home rentals provide explicit time (they clearly say for how many days you can use the vacation home) but they do not explicitly charge you for the space. This creates a small problem in some standalone villas in India. Many guests dry their clothes in the garden outside the villas. This is often objected to by the local community. Since space is implicit, the customer controls the definition of space and the management has to request them to refrain from drying clothes in the open.

Examples of Companies in Vacation Home rentals

Holiday Shacks (http://www.holidayshacks.com.au/?gclid=CKysweX-ypkCFZcwpAodUHY0Nw): Holiday Shacks are luxury holiday accommodation specialists on the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria, close to Melbourne. They offer personalised services so that you may enjoy distinctive holidays your way. Select your Shack from an array of stunning destinations across the Mornington Peninsula – Mornington, Mt Martha, Red Hill, Rye, Blairgowrie, Flinders, McCrae, St Andrew’s, Portsea or Sorrento.

This vacation home rental sells time explicitly and the space implicitly. It also provides different types of space as per the need of the market. For example it provides space for different market segments as is shown on their website. They have so much variety in space types that they can easily provide you with an easy and affordable alternative to a hotel.

Vacation Home rentals (http://www.vacationhomerentals.com/): Vacation home rental allows you to rent directly from the owner. By renting directly from the owner, they help you eliminate the middle man and save money. The property owners from different parts of the world can register on their website for free. So if you have a property which you want to rent out as a vacation home, you can register with them for free. If you are a tourist you can rent your property instead of a hotel to spend the vacation. Therefore, this company sells time explicitly and space implicitly. The interesting thing is that it does not own either time or space. The website makes money by facilitating the home rental process.


Homeaway (http://www.homeaway.com/ ): Homeaway has a network of over 145000 homes across USA and outside to provide low cost vacation experience to guests. Their website is a vacation rental one which sells time explicitly and the space implicitly. The website does not control most of its house owners who control the inventory of rooms. Still the website is willing to bear $5000 worth of liability if the guest faces any type of misrepresentation while booking on the site. It provides a service guarantee to back up the services booked on its site. Therefore, if you buy vacation home (i.e. explicit time) from this website you still have some control.

Hawaiian Beach Rentals (http://www.hawaiianbeachrentals.com/Hawaii/Oahu/Kahala/HaleOHookipa.htm): Hawaiian beach rentals are a vacation home operating in Hawaii. They do not have different owners to rent the properties to the tourists. Instead they do the entire renting directly with the customer. However, there are two unique things which differentiate it from the others. It allows you to give the price range (giving you more control-i.e. higher guest satisfaction). It also has a Hawaii Blog on the website for the guests who use the site to book their vacation homes. This allows new users to know about the credibility of the site.





INTERNET BASED SERVICE PROVIDERS

Industry overview:

For an internet service provider the time is hours, minutes, days or month. Some of the examples here show companies which sell internet related services using the logic of explicit time and implicit space. However, the meaning of space is different in internet. For ISPs the space is bandwidth. The ISPs usually sell time explicitly i.e. they tell the user to pay per month. Within this one month the user can exchange unlimited data i.e. make unlimited use of space (which is bandwidth in this case).


Examples of Companies in Internet based service providers

StarHub internet service (http://www.starhub.com/portal/site/Online/menuitem.935dac8c897c3fb7eaaf3b608324a5a0/?vgnextoid=00c528043c6ef010VgnVCM100000464114acRCRD): StarHub a Singapore based ISP provides hourly use of internet service. It is one of the two major internet and telephone services provider in Singapore. Since they provide hourly service the time is explicit. You can get internet service in slots of three hours by paying $2.95. This allows you to avoid the monthly plan which costs approximately $60. However, StarHub does not specify how much data you download in those three hours. So even though time is explicit the space is implicit.

LogMeIn (https://secure.logmein.com/welcome/fasteasy4/?wt.srch=1&originid=4969&utpk=access%20computer&destination=/welcome/fasteasy4/): LogMeIn is an Internet based service provider. It has developed cutting-edge technology that allows us to offer secure and easy access to your PC from anywhere for free. Through the internet it gives you access to any other computer in your network. Buying its product allows you to access your home computer from a remote location. Initially the service is free but after 30 days you have to buy the regular version. The regular version also charges you by a month/120 minutes (explicit time) but allows you to exchange unlimited data (implicit space) with your home computer within that month. This means you can control the space usage (in this case the bandwidth of the service provider linking to your PC). So space is implicit but time is explicit.

Brunet (http://www.brunet.bn/): From its humble beginning in October 1995, BruNet, as the pioneer of the fast growing and vibrant Internet industry in Brunei Darussalam, has grown by leaps and bounds from about 1000 postpaid customers with access speed of 14.4 kbps to about 9,000 postpaid dial-up customers with the maximum speed of 56 kbps, 5,000 high speed broadband customers and a significant number of prepaid dial-up internet customers at present and this number is still growing. Brunet sells internet services in explicit time and implicit space manner. So you can buy unlimited internet access for a fixed period of time. However, they give the guest control in the implicit space. They do this by giving the guest the option to choose from a range of bandwidths that they provide. You have to pay higher for a higher bandwidth channel. But once you have selected the channel you can download unlimited data. So you can control the bandwidth usage (i.e. space) whereas Brunet controls the time of bandwidth use.

Skype (http://www.skype.com/intl/en/allfeatures/subscriptions/): Skype is software that allows users to make telephone calls over the Internet. Calls to other users of the service and to free-of-charge numbers are free, while calls to other landlines and mobile phones can be made for a fee. Additional features include instant messaging, file transfer and video conferencing.

Skype provides monthly unlimited world calling services(explicit time). These calls are all made by using VoIP technology which allows you to make calls from your computer to any phone in the world. Currently unlimited world calling includes only 36 countries. So Skype controls the duration of subscription (explicit time). However, you control how much of this facility you want to use by using more (or less) of bandwidth (implicit space).