It is sure great to say hello to all of you today in this post on “Swapping Ideas,” our Swaptree blog. I have been involved with Swaptree as a user, advisor, board member and now, I’m moving to the role as CEO. (You might have seen the news in the article that appeared in the Boston Globe today). Bottom line: I am psyched to be here!
Who am I?
I have been a digital citizen since the mid-1990’s when I joined Lycos. In my executive roles at Lycos I had a front row seat to the emergence of the Internet Search category and I played a pioneering role in establishing the Lycos eCommerce business. Always a user first, I learned a great deal about the early communities of Tripod and Angelfire, vertical sites Quote.com and Gamesville, and the global expansion of the Internet through our ventures in Europe, Asia and Canada. I had a great time at Lycos and learned a great deal about online businesses.
In 2004 I started to collaborate with Highland Capital Partners on several business concepts and founded NameMedia. The thesis for this business was that you could build a vibrant commerce and media business on top of a large domain portfolio. After six years as President & COO of NameMedia, the company has emerged as the leading marketplace for premium domains across the globe. We also built a media network that serves more than 50 million visitors/month. The social web started to emerge during my tenure at NameMedia, and I played an active role in managing our niche media sites that became very integrated with Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and leveraged strategic relationships with Yahoo, Google, AOL and others. I remain involved with NameMedia as a member of our board.
Why Swaptree?
People are trying to save money and make the most of what they have today. Conservation and recycling are important aspects of our daily life, and there are billions of dollars of goods that people own that are not being used for anything. Swapping occurs all of the time in social groups in a myriad of categories. I contend that with the combination of all of these factors, and the social connections that are possible on the web today, there is an enormous swap movement that is building. By channeling these forces we can make a big impact on the world today. Swapping is at the forefront of social commerce. This is big stuff and it is what drives us.
One of our priorities at Swaptree right now is an initiative to get to you — the members — a little better. It is important that we understand your needs and ways we can enhance your experiences on Swaptree. You will see this with improvements coming in the way we operate customer service, use of social media tools to enhance our communications and vastly improving the user experience of the Swaptree site. We also have some big ideas for adding product functionality and platform expansion that I will be posting about in the weeks ahead. We look forward to working with all of you on these important initiatives.
In addition to my work for Lycos and NameMedia, I love to share information and ideas on my blog. I am also a husband, father, coach and teacher who loves to spend time with my family and friends. I enjoy almost anything outdoors but especially golf, tennis, skiing and cycling. Sports has always been important to me and besides my passion for Boston sports teams, I really enjoy college football, basketball and hockey.
I have enjoyed swapping with many of you and look forward to swapping with many more of you as we go forward. I am also looking forward to getting to know more about your needs, ideas and requirements for Swaptree. I am psyched to be here to help lead the swap movement!
Jeff Bennett, Swaptree CEO “SwapChief”
Swap.com Mobile is a free iPhone is app that lets you scan items into your HAVE and WANT lists, manage your account, see what you can get for your stuff, and participate in swaps.
