SwapSimple To Raise $1m In Venture Funding

Hey gang, we're in the paper again. This time it's about how we were selected to present SwapSimple at the 2006 Midwest Venture Summit.

Hopefully there we'll connect with a few investors that we like, so that we can ramp things up here really quickly, and start churning out all the features you've asked for over the last few months.

Here is a link to the article:

Read our Article in the Chicago Tribune

We're adding & moving servers - sorry for the dust!

We're adding to and moving our servers, so there may be some errors using the website over the next few days - such as the forums being down (as they are now). Have no fear, we are just spiffing things up a bit, and moving to a place that can accomodate the growth of the SwapSimple community.

This is very exciting, and we hope you all enjoy our new speed and diggs!!

Yahoo! and SwapSimple have teamed up to grow our community at record speed. Things are about to pick up real soon!

Hi gang,

We are about to launch a new ad campaign in partnership with Yahoo!, so things will be picking up around here pretty quickly.

Make sure to search for items you want (using our search bar on every SwapSimple page) so that you can add items to your wishlist. This will let you get first dibs on them when they arrive for trade - and arrive they will as many new people will be registering and listing items.

I'll keep you all posted, and let you know when we officially kick things off.

Talk soon,

Elliot
SwapSimple Co-Counder

Great meeting you this last Thursday at Chicago's TechCocktail event!

I just wanted to send a quick "thnak you" to all our SwapSimple community members who attended this event. It was a really great time, and it was good to meet you all.

Additionally, I really hope you enjoyed the event itself. It was a really great opportunity to see just what exactly is going on in Chicago, and all the amazing new tech companies and startups that are doing really interesting things in the Web 2.0 space.

I'll keep you all posted as more events show up in the Chicago area, and all over the country.

Talk soon,

Elliot
SwapSimple Co-Founder

Attention Chicagoans - Talk tech this evening with the SwapSimple team and others, at the free (yes, FREE!) TechCocktail event, in downtown Chicago.

There are going to be about 350 people in attendance, including other technology enthusiasts, VCs, bloggers and entrepreneurs. A few of the hottest Midwest startups will be demoing their products too. We'll be there with the SwapSimple team and would love to meet you and hear all your feedback on how we can make SwapSimple as great as it possibly can be!

General event info:

Get a chance to discover some of the most interesting tech goings on in the Midwest, and meet the people behind them - and it's free! Come share a few free beers, swap stories, network, and see what amazing things are happening right under your nose.

Here's an excerpt from the event website:

http://techcocktail.com/blog/2006/09/16/tech-cocktail-2-at-the-gramercy-october-12-2006/">TecCocktail Website

"It’s time for TECH cocktail 2! We are pleased to announce that the second TECH cocktail will be held on October 12, 2006 from 6:30 to 9pm at The Gramercy. The Gramercy, in pure web 2.0 fashion, offers a lot of white space so we are sure you will like it.

Just like TECH cocktail 1 this event is free and open to the public with complimentary beer (thanks to Coastr) and is sponsored by midPhase hosting. However, unlike our first event there will also be a cash bar offered - yes you can order a martini if you like! We hope that you join us for an evening of fun mingling with other technology enthusiasts, VCs, bloggers and entrepreneurs. A few of the hottest Midwest startups will be demoing their products."

Remember - you must RSVP via the event website, and please say that SwapSimple sent you.

See you there!

Elliot
SwapSimple Co-Founder

We're re-designing your logged in homepage. What features and information do you want us to put on it?

We are currently in the process of re-designing the logged in homepage (the page you see as your homepage once you're logged in). Please let us know what features and information you would like to see there.

We can pretty much do whatever you want, so let us know what would make your experience as productive, easy, fun, and interesting as possible.

The more you suggest, the better the conversation - and features - will be.

Thanks gang!

Elliot
SwapSimple Co-Founder

FYI: We're fixing the search - FINALLY!

Originally we created the search feature on the site for one purpose - to enable you to search for, and properly identify a particular item you wanted (regardless of whether it was available for trade or not). We would identify the exact item you were looking for, then you could see if it was available for trade.

We assumed that people would use this to find specific titles, and if we didn't have it available for trade, we would direct you elsewhere to where you could simply buy the item.

This was a poor method of doing things, and made searching for an item endlessly frustrating.

We are now changing the search to first look through our entire inventory, scanning titles, authors, item descriptions, etc - so that if you enter "Sherlock Holmes," the search will return a list of everything available on the site that has "Sherlock Holmes" somewhere in it's bibliographic information. We will also have some more advanced features, but the general goal is to give you the ability to quickly find items you may be interested in that are actually available for trade. We will still give you a 'best possible match' - regardless of if the item is available for trade or not, but that result will show up in a separate section at the bottom.

I hope this makes sense, and we'll keep you posted as to how things develop. We strongly feel this will make a very positive change in the way things work around here, and will totally alleviate the need to browse through items you really have no interest in.

As always, suggestions are very appreciated!!

New homepage design (the one you see when you are NOT logged in) - any thoughts?

We just re-designed the SwapSimple homepage. What we wanted to do was give a bit more info regarding what makes SwapSimple so different from other trading sites, and also wanted to make the page smaller, so that you didn't need to scroll way down to have to read the whole thing.

If you have any comments, please let us know. Your feedback is the most important thing to us.

New feature helps you make trades faster

The best way to generate Trade Credits is for someone else to order items you have listed for trade. To help you speed the process and get others ordering your items sooner, rather than later, we have added the following feature:

Login to your SwapSimple account, and then click on your personal Profile. Once there, you will see a link that you can cut/paste and email to all the people you know. That link directs people to your profile, and from there they can see all the items you have listed for trade - they don't even need to be a member of SwapSimple to view your inventory!

So try adding the link to your email signature, forum postings, web pages, Facebook & MySpace accounts, etc.

Have fun, and if you have any suggestions, please let us know.