Flipadisc is yet another new site that's trying to enable online media swapping: CDs, DVDs, games and books. It joins ZunaFish, SwapCore (coming soon, apparently), SwapThing, SwitchDiscs, Lala, BarterBee and Swaptree in the resurrection of a very old idea. Flipadisc's execution is particularly poor - the site barely works - but I'm also concerned about the core idea. As I said in the Zunafish profile, I wonder if real-money transactions (ala eBay) may be a more efficient mechanism for assigning value to an item, and whether real-media swapping might be on the downturn.
More recently, Techcrunch explored these issues, and suggested that Swaptree might be a strong contender in this space. This might actually be the case: if the service can match up users without a lengthy bidding process and a complex fee structure (Swaptree is free), it could be a compelling offering. In the end, it all comes down to ease of use - if swapping is easier than selling on eBay, users will switch. Flipadisc doesn't fulfil that need, but Swaptree just might.
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