Announcing the Release of the Swap iPhone App

Swapping is an age-old activity that’s been around forever.  Our mission at Swap.com is to enhance it…make it easier…create more connections and access to wider variety of swaps.  I have to say with the release of the Swap.com Mobile App for the iPhone this week, I believe that swapping has firmly entered the 21st century.

This is one of the most important advances in our company history. It represents a powerful new way to swap and gives you instant access to 13 million swappable items.

I have talked to many other Internet execs at RueLaLa, Kayak, Groupon and Yelp about their experience in building an app for smart phones.  Each exec was emphatic in pointing out that the process of determining what functions are essential is critical.  The iPhone is only so big so you have to be pretty judicious with what you feature.  The interface must be incredibly clean and streamlined as well.

We surely experienced this and we are grateful that the folks at Raiz Labs, who have built many  leading iPhone apps, were our partner in this endeavor.  There is no substitute for experience in such an important project.

The essentials that we decided to focus on with the Swap.com Mobile App are 5 key navigational elements:  Haves, Wants, GetNow, My Trades and Account. The app is super intuitive as the user navigates between these functions:

• Easy entry of items you Have and Want by integrating a bar code scanner.  This scanner takes a picture of the bar code on media products and automatically brings up the item.

• If you are adding this scanned item to your Have list, the App will let you know how many items you can get in swap.

• If you are adding this scanned item to your Want list, the App indicates how many Swap.com members have that item.

• All potential swaps are listed in the Get Now of the app where you can browse potential swaps and determine who you want to swap.

• My Trades gives you a view into all of your pending and competed swaps including the ability to accept, buy shipping labels and rate swaps.

• Account lets you manage all of your account info, including if you would like us to “push” information on swaps to your iPhone.  This push feature is awesome.

• Swapping is social and our app lets you share the items you like and your activity with all of your friends on Facebook and followers on Twitter…or email if you prefer.

I bought my first iPhone the second day they were available.  Since then I have downloaded a long list Apps.  There are many Apps that I use every day.  I am really pleased with how our initial version of the App has turned out. We let the folks at Mashable take the app for early spin and the title of their feature review today says it all: “Swap.com’s New Scan App Makes Trading Stuff Easy”

The article goes on to explain:

“Want to save your bank account and the environment at the same time? Swap sites, where you trade your books and other media, can help.

Manually entering ISBN or UPC codes for every item you’re willing to trade, however, does not make a lot of sense.

Swap.com is the first of the mainstream swap sites to solve this problem with an iPhone app that it released on Thursday. The new app allows you to simply scan the books, video games, movies and music that you want to trade. No manual entry necessary.”

To download the FREE Swap.com Mobile app for iPhone and start swapping, visit the Apple iTunes store.

We invite you play around with the app and give us your feedback. We think you’ll be excited with the new possibilities it presents and hope that makes your swapping experience that much easier.

Happy Swapping…on the web, at events…and now on your iPhone!