Freecycle a no go
I tried freecycle.org today, which entails signing up to a regional mailing list where you post stuff that you are willing to give away, and also to a lower frequency (in theory) stuff you want to get.
There is no trading allowed, you just hand away stuff, and people give you stuff. Pretty handy for the tech you dont want to bother throwing up on ebay. However, it has some serious, serious problems.
Take the case of a printer that I put up for free giveaway today. I got a response back that someone wanted it within just a few minutes. Unfortunately, even though I posted the "TAKEN: printer" message, which is supposed to indicate that the item is no longer available, I continued to get about 10 messages within a few hours of people asking for it.
The freecycle setup doesnt make it easy to find out what stuff is already taken without parsing all the messages sent to the list. Unfortunately, people are lazy and wont do that. A web based system at that domain that follows a free auction setup would be better.
posted by JonnyRo @ 11:31 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
The functionality that you are looking for already exists for another re-giving network.
I-recycle is a UK based re-giving network that deliver notification through RSS as opposed to email.
No need of Taken message because as soon as the item is taken, the item is removed from the list. give it a go at http://irecycle.conceptuel.co.uk
The site claims that it may expand to other countries!!!
Thanks for the tip. It would be awesome if the site did expand to other countries.
I gave loads of stuff away when moving to the states and put each item in a blog post on my MT installation. Then as people picked it up/requested it I just updated the blog - very quickly done and easily changed.
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