Swaptree

I signed up for a Swaptree beta invite bout a year ago (read about it in Business 2.0), and actually received my invitation about a month ago, pre-public release of the site. Swaptree.com went live to the public on July 4th 2007.

Here's how it works:

• List - Your stuff, and stuff you want.
• Relax - Swaptree finds people who want your stuff, and finds people who has stuff you want.
• Choose- Browse available swaps, everything is rated at equal value. Awesome factor? Swaps can involve up to eight people. That's one fancy algorithm.
• Swap - Print out pre-paid postage (charged to your credit card, really cheap), and swap.

There, you got something you wanted for free, and you gave up something you didn't want. You do pay postage, but it's minimal and since the other guy does it, I don't feel bad.

My Review: I swapped a DVD for a Book. My shipper was late shipping the book and didn't use the print out postage option, so I couldn't track the package (otherwise it's an awesome feature). There's no "mark as shipped" link for shippers, so that made me anxious as well. Finally I got the book and it was in crummier condition than listed, so I gave her a bad review.

Still, that could have happened on any site (Half.com, Amazon Marketplace).

I think Swaptree will work much better when there's more people on the site - Currently, unless you're posting a Sex in the City Season 6 DVD Set, your swaps are pretty limited. Best Sellers are good loot though - Easily swapped with other Best Sellers.

Overall Potential to be awesome, needs a very large community to work, and seems to be headed in that direction.

Bonus: Greasemonkey script that lives on Amazon.com pages, happily telling you if what you're searching for you can get for free on Swaptree, given your "I have" inventory.