Connect with errand runners on the web

Using the Internet to connect with people who have particular skills sets has become extremely popular in a time of high unemployment.

The New York Times  recently ran a story about this trend, which some industry insiders call service networking, instead of social networking.

The idea is to hire people who may be underemployed but have valuable knowledge to help run errands, organize your closet or otherwise de-clutter your life. The services seem to fall into to two basic categories:

• TaskRabbit.com, Zaarly.com and AgentAnything.com all allow you to hire someone in your local area to run errands for you. For example, if you buy Ikea furniture, you might hire a “rabbit” to assemble it for you. The services may only be available in select areas.
• FancyHands.com and AskSunday.com are more virtual, rather than local. Both subscription services offer monthly fee structures where you can hire people “to fulfill a set number of requests”¦mostly completed on the Web and through e-mail or on the phone.”

The typical task will cost you $25, or a monthly subscription fee starts at $25. At prices like that, you’ll obviously need a lot of clients if you want to do this to build extra income. But we’re in time where creativity is called for, and any “rabbit” you can pull out of a hat to make money is what you need to be about.