When Jamie Talbot's in-laws were in town recently and the family had trouble getting a taxi to take them to dinner, the software engineer pulled out his phone and summoned a town car.

WSJ: Practical Perks: Workers Get Credits at Task Outsourcers

We did our radio show from our farmhouse and my brothers and sisters would do the chores, milk the cows, come in and have breakfast and then my dad would crank the phone on the wall to let the engineer in Springfield, Missouri know that we were ready to do the show.

NPR: Charlie Haden: A Bassist With A Country Pedigree

The theory, which goes back to efforts by Danish engineer A.K. Erlang to predict phone traffic in 1909, gets pretty abstruse.

FORBES: Hurry Up And Wait