Moms Love Books Too

Hello 2SWAP Members!

2SWAP.com has been growing each day and has been getting some great press lately! Our friends over at the Cradle (www.thecradle.com) have posted an awesome mention about 2SWAP on their site. To view the piece click on the following link:

http://www.thecradle.com/eco-cradle/ecobookexchange

We love that they are promoting us as one of their eco friendly book exchange options, as that is an element of the site we are very proud of.

Anyone who joins the site after reading about us on the Cradle will get a free swap credit, so spread the word to your friends that have not yet joined in on the fun!

We thank the Cradle for their support and all of you for loving books and being a part of our community!

Happy Swapping!

Because we Love Books…

Here at 2Swap we tend to run across various blogs written by people who love books for people who love books. Because we are some of those people, and if you are on this site reading this blog you are probably some of those people as well, we would like to share some of our favorite book sites with all of you. This is just a short list to get you started, but stay tuned for more to come.

1. www.bookslut.com

This is one of the largest and most comprehensive blogs out there. This blog is regularly updated and includes book reviews, author interviews and lots of other book-loving fun.

2. www.somanybooksblog.com

This blog is a diary through the world of book fanatic Stephanie Hollmichel. She includes lists and insight on books she’s read, favorite quotes and personal thoughts on literature and life.

3. http://50books.blogspot.com/

“One Woman. One Year. Countless Distractions.” This is an intriguing blog run by a woman who calls herself Doppelganger. Her writing is witty, personal and always leaves room for comments.

Enjoy! And if you happen to read about books that interest you make sure to add them to your 2Swap wishlist!

And the Crunchie Goes To…

2SWAP.com has been nominated in two categories for the CRUNCHIE Awards, presented by Tech Crunch, GigaOM, and others.

Please go here to vote for us in these two categories: Best Bootstrapped Start-up and Best Consumer Start-up.

Then, tell a friend or ten and see if you can push us into the finals.

If we win, we will get lots of attention, and lots of smart and good looking people will join 2SWAP.com. That means more great books to choose from for you and our other loyal members.

So, if we win, you win. Please get out there and try to help yourself (and 2SWAP) win. Thanks.

LightWedge – not ready for primetime

I love gadgets, I love to read books, I love my wife, and my wife likes to go to sleep earlier than I do.

“When are you going to turn off the light?” is a frequent topic of conversation around bedtime.

When I saw the LightWedge, I thought my problem was solved. This product is a clear plastic sheet with LEDs grafted onto one edge. It runs on AAA batteries. When laid flat on a page, it uses the physics of light channeling and reflection to illuminate the page, and nothing else. In theory, it would enable you to read a book in a completely dark room, without disturbing a sleeping spouse (or seatmate, in an in-flight situation).

So, I shelled out about $30 for the LightWedge. That night, I climbed into bed, turned off the lights, grabbed Guns, Germs and Steel and applied my new gadget. I flipped the switch and spent the next 10-15 minutes squinting at the too-dimly lit, wavy-looking pages.

This product is great, in theory. In my experience, however, it was good for about 5 minutes of reading before it stopped being worth the trouble. I’ll report back when I find a better bedtime reading light. Meanwhile, if you have a better product to suggest, please post a comment below and I’ll check it out and consider reviewing it here.

Meanwhile, my LightWedge does make a pretty decent bookmark.

Welcome to the beta launch…

 

Welcome to the beta launch of 2SWAP.com. If you enjoy the site, I hope you’ll tell a friend (or ten). If you run into any problems with it, or if you have any suggestions about how we can improve our service, please feel free to post them below in the comments area. If your comments are not fit for public consumption, you can email us at hq@2swap.com .

 

As our community grows, we will keep you posted on how many items have been swapped and how many trees and other natural resources that have been saved by our brand of recycling. As we like to say, “Free your books, the rest will follow.”

We have been developing 2SWAP for the last few months. Now that the beta site is live, we are already hard at work on the next release. Thanks to the feedback of our alpha test group, some of the changes to the site you can expect to see include:

      - integrated postage
-  a faster browsing experience
- simpler book classification
- enhanced community functionality
- how to demos.