I was just chatting with Jason Warner at Starbucks and he told me about a very cool, early stage startup called Swaptree, located in Boston. I’m looking forward to trying it out when it leaves closed beta.

Business 2.0 called Swaptree the eBay of swap, but to me they look more like the Netflix of swap.

What they’ve done is taken all of the hassle out of multi-way swaps of old books, cd, dvds, and video games, in the same way that Netflix has simplified video rentals.

They have a database of millions of such items, so simply by punching in a UPC or ISBN number they can complete the description with album art, description, and shipping cost. They allow you to print postage and shipping labels right from the web site, and they have ready-to-go mailers (a la Netflix) for different sized items.

The site has algorithms for facilitating multi-way swaps, so you don’t have to find someone who wants to do a direct swap. Presumably they’ll have a reputation system to deter cheaters.

Swaptree charges no fees for swaps; they make money from advertising based on information about who is swapping what.

I understand they are looking with some urgency for a skilled SQL Server DBA, so if you meet that description and are interested let me know and I’ll forward your resume on.