Sep 24th 2008 09:06:42 pm

Quick announcement! I am going to be interviewed LIVE tomorrow for the TerriO Radio Show about Swap-bot. TeriO is the spokeswoman for the Craft & Hobby Association and she hosts an online radio show called “Empowering Creativity” on wsRadio.com. I am going to be on tomorrow’s show (Thursday, September 25th, 2008) which is broadcast live from 1-2 Pacific Coast Time (4-5 EST or 3-4 Central). If you are by the computer tomorrow afternoon, listen to the program here. I will be interviewed during the final segment (last 15 minutes) of the program. It should be fun! (The show is also archived as a podcast for a year, so I will post a link to that later.)

UPDATE: You can download the MP3 of my exciting interview here. Swap-bot was featured in the fourth segment and the interview is only 6 minutes long. Check it out!

1 Comment » Categories: press

Sep 9th 2008 07:43:35 pm

Associated press reporter, Holly Ramer, interviewed me a few weeks ago for an article about internet swapping. Her article has now been released online on MSNBC and other news outlets. Read it here. Thanks for the coverage, Holly! We love press!

The swap-bot section of the article:

At Swap-bot.com, a site devoted exclusively to swaps, the most popular ones tend to involve artist trading cards — small works of art that let participants share their artistic styles with others. At any given time, the site features 500 active swaps, and it has hosted more than 20,000 since 2005.

Swap-bot uses a computer algorithm to mix up participants and assign partners, sends out reminder e-mails to participants, and includes a feedback system to deter “flakers” or cheaters who don’t send their packages.

But why go through the trouble of making something for someone you don’t know?

“I think the number one thing is that the lure of getting a package in the mail is pretty strong,” says Rachel Johnson, 27, of Eugene, Ore., who founded the site with her husband. “But I like to think it’s also a way of connecting physically with someone you only know as a screen name. People are meeting and connecting with people from different countries and different cultures.”

3 Comments » Categories: press