

A fun modern way to trade: math trades - Tichy
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/93555

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Tichy
These are not new, but I have liked the idea ever since I encountered it, and
I have not seen it mentioned on news.yc before. So far I have only seen it on
boardgamegeek, although I think there is independent software for conducting
such trades (so people outside of boardgemgeek seem to know and care about
it).

What I like about it: it might be a more optimal form of trade, that has only
become feasible with the access to adequate computing power (100 years ago,
there wasn't an option to trade like this - I think calculating the optimal
trade is a NP complete problem. Haven't checked this now, though).

And furthermore, it is simply fun: it adds an element of suspense and
excitement to the trade, while you can still be sure to not be screwed over.

I was inspired to post this because of the "auctions" in the YC list... A part
of me wanted to remain quiet, but we'll see ;-)

~~~
Calamitous
There's a new startup, BarterQuest (<http://www.barterquest.com/>), that aims
to do the same sort of math trades, craigslist-style.

Sounds like a really neat idea if you could get enough people involved...

~~~
Tichy
Interesting, but too bad that you can't even browse the items without signing
up. Hopefully that is only because it is still beta (I didn't sign up).

~~~
dennmart
Hey Tichy,

I'm a developer at BarterQuest, and I stumbled upon this post from you
recently. I wanted to try and clarify some of the things mentioned in this
post and in your comments.

During our Invitation-Only Beta Testing period, we are requiring users to sign
up to do most activities on our site. This is mostly due to the fact that we
want to measure how our site performs with signed-up users who will have
access to all of our sites features.

As it relates to the article linked here, BarterQuest has a patented Matching
Engine, which depending on what you have to trade and what you want to trade
it for, among other things like specific attributes for your item, it will
calculate the best matches for you, so you won't have to be searching all over
the site for that item you're looking for. Of course, you'll be able to do
that too, but we're confident our Matching Engine will be able to do the job
for you. Right now since we're still in testing, the match results won't be
plentiful, but as time goes on and we roll out of Beta testing and more users
post more items, it'll be relatively easy to get accurate matches.

I encourage you (and to sign up during this testing period. Right now the site
is totally free of cost, and if you're able to complete a successful trade
during the testing period, you'll get free trading for an entire year. We also
have some additional bonuses for signed-up users as well, which will be
announced in our blog (<http://blog.barterquest.com>) soon.

We hope to see you there!

