Yoink! Part 2

So I am writing this to amend my previous post about Yoink! Yoink! founder Stuart K. Hall (or perhaps a robot with the same name? I never know who’s real and who’s not any more. Either way, I appreciate the gesture.) contacted me via the comments section of the previous post to inform me that you can subscribe to local results either “by email or RSS, by zooming to area you want notifications for, then select the email or RSS icon at the bottom left of the map.”

So I stand corrected, that feature does exist. I still would like geo-tagged results so as I walk down the street I would get notifications of what was close to me, but that would probably get out of control as the site gets more users. 

And as a side note, no one has contacted me about my bike helmet yet. Any takers?

Day 1: Yoink!

I came across Yoink through Mashable, as part of their Spark of Genius series. Basically it is a way for people to easily give and get free stuff. As a recently married man who just moved in with his recently married (to me, of course) wife, I can attest that the world is full of too much stuff. Or at least our apartment is. And although making Goodwill runs is exciting, it grows old quickly. So Yoink is something that certainly appeals to me.

So to try this out, I posted a bike helmet to Yoink. (If you are interested, you can check it out here.) My first thought: there aren't categories. It's not listed under "Sporting Goods," just by location – Seattle. Right now, this really isn't a problem since there aren't many users. Bittersweet, I guess. In fact, at the time of this post, there are only 306 items total in the U.S., although there are 1,300+ in Australia – not sure why that is. Ultimately, the number of engaged users will dictate how successful any social network is. This is especially true of Yoink since it deals with real products, not just information in the mysterious cloud.

The cool think about Yoink is the iPhone app. So you can take a picture of something through the app, it will geo-tag the picture, and tag on the Yoink map where it is. That's pretty cool. Similarly, you can look on the Yoink map on your phone and see what is close to you. I think it would be even better if you could opt for notifications if you are within 1-2 miles of something in need of Yoinking. (As you can see, it makes a great verb, which is half the battle.)

Conclusion

It has a lot of potential, and it is something that I can see myself using again. However, how effective it is is based on how much stuff there is to Yoink. Right now, not a whole lot. If there were any way that Yoink could tap into the Craigslist database, that would be cool. Or if you could post things to Craigslist through Yoink. Or if there were a 1969 Lincoln Continental available to Yoink in Seattle instead of a used cat tree, that would be even better. But there's not, at least not now.