World, meet Swapcove.com

Tonight I'm very pleased to announce the launch of Swapcove, a way to swap what you have for what you want.

So here is the premise - When times are good, people will spend some percentage of their income satisfying their wants. This principle applies to everyone; For one person it might mean some new clothes, for another it's trying out that adventure sport that looks like a blast, for a lucky few it might mean upgrading one of the jets to something less cramped. Regardless, once the harder times hit us (eg: now), that percentage shrinks as people focus on their financial safety net. What happens at this point? A big portion of those wants go unsatisfied.

Sure, conventional wisdom might have something to say about "having your cake and eating it too", but surely there's a way to be save your money and still be able to do all the fun and interesting things you want to do with your life.

It was when I arrived at this question that I realized how much stuff most of us having laying around that, given the choice, we would trade for something higher on our personal priority list. Additionally, someone probably has what you want, and quite possibly would trade for it if the right deal came to them. All I had to do was figure out how to bring these people and their items together.

Hunting around I realized pretty quickly that most forms of exchange have been replicated online, eBay is fantastic for auctions, likewise Amazon for retail and eTrade for stocks and so on. After much research, including going back to the invention of currency thousands of years ago, I understood what shortcomings barter had in a pre-internet world, how to overcome them, and why now is the exactly the right time to fill that gap in online exchange.

It was starting from there that I began working on a solution, joined shortly after my mate Brad Kellett. The result is a site with some key differences to what you might have seen before:

• Swapcove is designed for you to list anything you'd swap if the right deal came along, not just stuff you specifically want to get rid of.
• Offers can include any number of items on either side of the swap.
• If an offer is close but not quite there, you can propose a counter offer.
• You can swap services.
• Swapping is based on value, not price. If a deal is worthwhile to you, go for it. Swapcove wont get in the way with point systems, estimated value or anything like that. You decide if it's a good swap.

The site's up so go ahead and create an account, add some items and start swapping. I'd love to hear your feedback too, so feel free to email me at luke@swapcove.com or via our getSatisfaction site, and keep in mind that it's still early days - There's a LOT more in the works.