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.
A Digital Perspective 
Thanks for the post! You can get a notification, by either 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.Hope that helps.Cheers,Stuart – Yoink! co-founder
I don’t know if you’ve heard about free recycling groups like Freecycle, Freegle and ReUseIt but they have a huge community around the world already devoted to giving and getting free stuff.These groups have a bit more rules though and can be a bit overwhelming with all the offers and requests that arrive in your inbox. I’ve built a new site at http://trashnothing.com that tries to makes it easier for people to use these groups. I’d love to hear feedback if you get a chance to try it out.