Quick Pitch: Yoink makes it simple to give away your unwanted items and find free goods near you.
Genius Idea: For years, savvy Internet denizens have used the Freecycle network group in their city to give away stuff they don't want and to find free items for pickup. The only problem with Freecycle is that everything is managed in Yahoo Groups, making the whole experience rather clunky.
Others have used Craigslist to accomplish the same task, but this approach can be time-consuming, both while searching for the exact item you want and while traveling sometimes-long distances to get it.
Yoink employs the exact same everybody-wins-when-we-recycle-and-reuse-goods mentally but modernizes the entire experience and makes it easy to find items near you.
The product has a simple purpose: Use the site or iPhone app to give or get (yoink) items. You can scour Yoink for available items nearby using the map-based view, or you can search for specific items. When you're ready to claim something, click the "Yoink" button to reserve the item; then, you can message the giver to arrange for pick-up.
You can also list whatever items you want to offload and rack up "generosity points" for everything you give away. Listing items is just as simple as yoinking them. Just start typing in the "What can you give?" box on the homepage, and the area will expand so you can attach a photo and specify the item's location.
Yoink also tracks individual giving and yoinking behaviors across the site. Just navigate to the Stats tab to check out how you rank against other members when it comes to generosity.
If one person's trash really is another person's treasure, then Yoink is essentially the middleman between the two, providing a better way to uncover unwanted treasures in your neighborhood.
Image courtesy of nedrichards, Flickr
Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark