Archive for the 'SwapThing' Category
One of the questions I am frequently asked involves how we deal with accountability and trust with online swapping. Accountability is important; you want to know that the person you are swapping with will hold up their end of the bargain. From the beginning of time, when the first caveman swapped meat for a club, trust is what makes barter work. So we have a couple of elements we look at to make it all work.
The first is a simple rating system. We could have built one, and did in the early days, but realized that we would then own your reputation, which did not seem fair. We partnered up with Rapleaf so that our users could own their own reputation. Who doesn’t want to work with a company that believes that it is more profitable to be ethical? The rating system is the first barrier to bad actions; when your reputation is portable and goes with you across multiple sites, you tend to make sure that you act with integrity.
In addition, the real key to swapping safely is leveraging implicit and explicit trust. In Freakonomics they talk about a study an economist conducts in Washington D.C. with bagels in break rooms. In small companies, people always pay for the bagels. If they aren’t motivated by ethics to act right, they are motivated by the fear of anyone they know finding out that they took a bagel without paying.
What do bagels have to do with swapping? Think of SwapCircles as the break room in the small company. If you are in a SwapCircle with people you know, of course everyone will behave well and swap fairly. You obviously have an explicit trust relationship with those people and can rely on them to meet their end of the bargain. If you are in a SwapCircle with people that you do not know, but have an association with, then you have implicit trust with them. You don’t know them, but because of other connections, you can rely on them to conduct a fair swap. One example of this is parents at an elementary school. You may not know the other parent, but you know that it is likely that you have acquaintances in common, and therefore you can trust each other. This happens when people invest social capital in an online community or group. You have never met, but you have been posting to the same collect forum for four years. You are invested in that forum and will therefore treat anyone fairly in a swap so that you can continue your online activities there without a damaged reputation.
We obviously believe that people mean well and most people not only act fairly, but will also understate the value of their item so that they are not perceived to be unfair. However, these ideas of rating and reputation, as well as explicit and implicit trust, are an important part of the SwapThing community. If you want to participate, the best way is to start a SwapCircle today. Don’t forget that if you use our affiliate program you can earn money for your group, association or even your child’s school.
At SwapThing we only try to partner with the best folks that improve your user experience. Up until now, the only partner we have shared data with is RapLeaf, the reputation system that allows you to own your reputation..
Now we are adding Cerardo Haystack Networking to that list. There are many reasons why we love the folks over at Cerado – not just because they are super groovy dudes, but also because their product makes it easier for you to know whom your friends are and stay connected to them in your SwapCircles.
We like Haystacks because they put you in the driver’s seat (notice the theme here?). In their own words, they are all about letting you decide with whom you want to swap. Maybe it’s someone inside the organization you already know, or respect, from work or your child’s school.
This fit’s in well with our new SwapAffiliates program, allowing you to connect to your friends from any blog, website, or forum group. If you are a member of an offline organization, you can now have a complete solution, including a destination web page that you control, a full range of membership options (from invitation only to open enrollment) and the ability to decide who you want to be connected to.
Cerado is passionate about the customer and we strongly believe that they are some of the good guys in cyberspace. As proof, check out their Social Customer Manifesto – it says it all.
You don’t need to do anything, the Cerado Haystack Networking is activated automatically for any SwapCircles you own or belong to.
We have had an internal debate on SwapThing on the best way to handle the listing of animals. For quite a while we didn’t allow animals because we wanted to make sure that they were protected and safe. However, lots of user mail has changed our minds.
In all fairness, SwapThing was started with a swap involving an animal. If that swap hadn’t happened, I would have had 3 years less with my cat and you wouldn’t be reading this.
People want to engage in all kinds of animal swaps – from purebreds and rescues to household pets and farm animals. Sometimes, it’s a permanent swap people want, and other times it’s temporary, such as stud service. There is also the whole service side of things. Vets have as much right to swap as other service providers, and we would be very happy to have the site overflowing with animals and animal-related services.
We have removed all animal related restrictions. As with all things on the site, there is a link at the bottom if you feel that a particular posting endangers animals. If we have removed your animal-related posting in the past, we encourage you to repost now.
Welcome to all of our four-footed, feathered, scaled, and fluffy friends!
Kim Komando has chosen us as her cool site of the day today! Welcome to all the members of Kim’s community, we hope you enjoy our SwapThing community… we know we are glad to have you here.
We do apologize if things are running a bit slow; we are getting a ton of traffic (no complaints here,) and are working hard to keep everything up and running. If the site is not loading fast, please know that it is the high volume and that we normally run much quicker.
Thank you Kim!
What better a day than Groundhog’s Day to launch some new and exciting functionality!
You asked and we listened. Now adding the things you are seeking is easier than ever. Simply go to your My SwapThing page and click on I’m Seeking under the My Listings section on the right side. You can now add a thing and a string of descriptive tags for what you are seeking, and request a daily digest email alert if you want to be notified when things you are seeking are added to the system. Remember, the more things you add that you are seeking, the easier it is to swap the things you are offering.
Do you have a website, a blog, or a forum site? If so, don’t you think it should be paying you money? We are happy to announce our new SwapAffilates program, a social network that can be implemented on any website, blog, or forum site that enables communications and swapping amongst members of a group. As the website owner you will have multiple revenue earning opportunities while providing a valuable service to your users.
If you have an offline group, the SwapAffiliates program is a great fundraiser. Give your church, school, sports league, business network, or other group a way to swap things in a trusted environment between members, while earning revenue for the group. Get your SwapAffiliates SwapCircle up and running today!
Check out the new tag cloud on your profile and in SwapCircles. The tag cloud provides a quick glance on what you are offering and seeking, as well as the focus of any SwapCircle. Within SwapCircles, the tag clouds are an indicator of the collective offerings of a group. Check it ouy on my Literary SwapCircle or any of the SwapCircles you belong to.
Got any other features you want to see? Let us know or comment here.
Looking at the entries to the contest - the team decided that we just couldn’t pick a single winner. Therefore, we will be contacting all the entries for a shirt size to send them their very own SwapThing T-shirt.Congratulations everyone and thank you for participating!
So it’s the 22nd and I have sorely missed my mark on being a better blogger this year. We had freezing, fire, flooding, power outages, and the plague but that’s no excuse. (OK - no fire or flooding - and technically the NoroVirus is not the plague.) So here is my new start right now - and I will start posting several times a week.We are working on some really cool new stuff that we will be launching at the end of the week. We have new functionality for the site and for all you folks who have your own blog, website or forum group. Check here on Friday for full details.Stay healthy and stay warm!
SwapCircles have been updated and improved to make them easier to create, join and use. New technology has been added to make it simple to create SwapCircles so you can swap and interact with fellow swappers who have the same interests and/or proximity. Browsing is a breeze and you can effortlessly add unique images to represent your SwapCircle. Make yours today and invite others to join! To simplify the process of adding new items, there is now the option of providing the ISBN (books) or UPC (CD’s, DVD’s, and video games) for your things. When you enter either of these numbers (with no spaces or dashes) on the Add a Thing page, our system will automatically recognize the item and fill the Title and Description fields for you.
- ISBN, or International Standard Book Number, is the 10 or 13 digit number that uniquely identifies information pertaining to a book. The ISBN typically can be located above the bar code on the back cover of the book.
- UPC, or Universal Product Code, is the 12 digit number that uniquely identifies information pertaining to your things, most notably CD’s, DVD’s, and video games. The UPC can be found directly below the bar code.
SwapThing has updated the way we list services with SwapServices. A subscription-based model has been implemented in order to enhance the user experience and create a more powerful way for you to showcase your service. With a service listing you can highlight your business, the location, and your reputation. Skills, like items, are anonymous, whereas SwapService listings serve as an advertisement for your service to swap or sell. For some of our service providers, the SwapServices page becomes their personal webpage, getting them higher results in the search engines for local search.
Local Subscription National Subscription
Monthly $8.00 Monthly $10.00
Quarterly $19.00 Quarterly $28.00
Yearly $70.00 Yearly $100.00
SwapSubscriptions provide a new way to conduct swap transactions. For just $3.00 a month you can have unlimited transactions. If you are doing more than three swaps a month, this is the perfect option for you.
Due to an unforeseen database error, the entries for the Bad Gift Contest were deleted. We were able to retrieve most of these, but if you submitted an entry and do not see it, please repost your story so we can consider you for the prizes. We apologize for the inconvenience and have extended the contest deadline to January 15th.
The winter holiday season is upon us, so that means it’s time for SwapThing’s 2nd Annual Bad Gift Contest. Regardless of what you celebrate this time of year, gifts are given and not all of them are things we necessarily want. We want to hear about the things that make you put on a fake happy face when you open them. Whether the gifts are bizarre, inappropriate, or thoughtless, share your tale so we can all have a good laugh. Here are a few examples of what you told us last year:
- a flat-chested woman received a “boob cooler,” which is intended to keep well-endowed women cool and chaffe-free. - a cash-strapped couple agreed to limit the spending on each others gift. She got him a shirt that matched his eyes, and he got her a doormat and a 12-pack of beer. - a person living in a tiny 600 sq. ft. apartment received a tea set for eight people, though only a fraction of that could fit into the apartment. The best stories will be voted upon with the winners receiving free swaps and SwapThing T-shirts.
And don’t forget the old saying: One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Don’t re-gift or return those unwanted items; list them on SwapThing and see if it tickles the fancy of someone else.
Our new SwapServices was designed to make it easier than ever to swap services on SwapThing. The more service providers that sign up, the easier it is to swap items for services in your area, or services for other services.
Have you had any success swapping services on SwapThing? If so, drop us a line and will republish the best stories here on the blog, and give a t-shirt to the best story we hear. Let us know if you would like to joint press with SwapThing, we are looking for folks willing to talk to the national press outlets to help us share our story and yours – a great opportunity to bring attention to your business.
