Yoink!

It's a cool idea to offer your unwanted stuff for free, and have the opportunity to get other people's unwanted stuff for free, and do both at the same venue. And that's what this project is about. And it seems to have plans for global domination too, as you have an opportunity to become "the most generous person on Earth", perhaps somewhat of an overstatement, but they mean well. This has a neat, visual interface which employs mapping and an overlay to show where the offers are. And just for fun, there's a Stats feature so you can keep track of your activities, as well as seeing how other people are doing, and how much stuff has been given away in your country, or the entire world - but only at this website, of course. It's an ambitious idea that's at a very early stage, which probably explains why the "most generous person in the USA" right now is a user called "annoyed". To be fair it only launched in November as a 'beta' so it's very, very new. Its initial and ongoing challenge will be to attract enough users to populate the site with freebies, and in the USA at least, it has to get people's attention away from similar facilities offered by Craigslist and the local newspapers. Even if the idea is fine, its success, if it comes, is still fraught with problems. We don't live in a moneyless society. There will be many people very happy to take away others' unwanted stuff, and then sell it. There will be concerns that charities are losing out because people are giving directly to others, instead of donating to thrift stores. Although moneyless living has been tried on a very small scale, it will always run into problems when it impacts on a society which isn't geared up for generosity, barter or the free exchange of goods and services. So I wouldn't look for or expect tremendous things from this idea, but it may still achieve enough to provide some folks with things they couldn't otherwise afford, and provide the givers with a sense of social responsibility too. That can't be a bad thing.