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Submitted by: siliconglen
Created: Aug 5, 2006, 2:10 am

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Not freeish. Not freesque. It's free!

The Idea

Help each other out Many people have "to do" lists of stuff they would like to get done. Whether it's odd jobs around the house, help finding a job, work on their website etc. This idea is for people to enter their to do list and to categorise each of the items on it. Then people can search this list and offer help or trade help. So a local DIY person might offer to do some work on my house and would assign a number of points to this. I could cancel out the points by, say, fixing his computer, alternatively I could buy the points to cover his time. Alternatively I could cancel out some of the points by doing a favour for one of his friends etc. Jobs on websites could be done by anywhere worldwide with the skills. Idea makes money when points are loaded on the system or when people pay for work.

I thought of this idea when I was...

Looking at the to do list for today and realising it hasn't changed much in six months because other stuff keeps cropping up. If I offered one hour of my time fixing a computer I might be able to trade this for 2 hours of time for someone doing DIY around the home - I would save time and money!

Comments Posted

TrueBeliever Posted: August 1, 2007, 2:04 pm

I like this one a lot. Please set it up soon so I can get out of painting my front porch.

firefox Posted: August 1, 2007, 11:53 pm

A good idea, but execution seems unclear

vanhees Posted: August 2, 2007, 4:44 am

Something like this exist in the Netherlands and is fairly succesfull.
Tommy

Rizal Posted: August 2, 2007, 8:22 am

ITs been done like vanhees say in several countries... could work where u live now!

ThrasherC Posted: August 2, 2007, 11:59 am

One problem might be the lack of any sort of business contract with respect to the work being done. You have no guarantee that the person will do a good job, nor do you have any legal protection in this situation. How do you screen for legitimate users? How do you reconcile any debts that aren't paid?

PhilipH Posted: August 7, 2007, 12:37 pm

ThrasherC's problem could possibly be worked around with an eBay-style feedback system. Perhaps you wouldn't give a big job to a newcomer on the site, but an old hand with a wealth of positive comments would be expected to be more trustworthy.

I think vanhees is right - I've heard of this being done at a very local level before, and perhaps that's where it works best.

Hello!

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