Organizers will hold “Live Barter Matchmaking” events this month at various spaces in Manhattan; one, pictured, was held last weekend at the Dance Theater Workshop.

“If you’ve got a show coming up, you may need somebody to run your lights, write your press release and design your postcards,” said Jen Abrams, a network co-founder. “OurGoods is about finding those three people, and reciprocating.” Information: OurGoods.org.

Barter Angels is based in the North East of England.

The business operates nationwide with a Sales Director in London and the South East who is building a team nationwide.

Barter Angels allows part barter/part cash transactions and clients pay no joining fee until they do their first transaction.

I am the sole owner of the business having a background in Corporate Banking with Royal Bank Of Scotland and American Express.

The company differentiates itself because it considers all its clients as barter angels helping each other. Clients come first and are properly account managed by the sales people who bring them on to ensure continuity.

The UK economy is really struggling and I want to help businesses through these times. Banks are accountable to shareholders and cannot provide the caring practical support that a barter company can. There is a spirituality to this business which goes beyond money and is in line with the predictions for 2012 when, some spiritual advisers predict, we will all be transacting less with money.

Interest free credit lines and flexibility are key to this business. It is also a way for businesses to link up with others across the country.

Interestingly, Theo Paphitis, a celebrity and successful entrepreneur in the UK who is involved with a BBC program called Dragons Den offered to retweet six businesses on Sunday 10th October. Barter Angels Limited was one of the six retweeted and resulted in a massive increase in interest.

From the press release:

Travelers who plan to visit China can use TourBoarding.com’s bilingual communication interface and travel barter platform to arrange a rich variety of travel benefits from local hosts, such as home stay, tour guiding, and Chinese language or cooking lessons. Instead of paying cash for any of these services, travelers can pay by speaking their native language to their hosts for two hours a day, to help them achieve proficiency in their desired language. English is the most in demand, but German, Japanese, and French are also highly sought by the Chinese.

“Unlike other sites that bring travelers and hosts together, TourBoarding is the first site of its kind to offer a structured framework for travelers and hosts to barter directly with one another for services and make specific arrangements according to their own needs,” explained co-founder Ken Chen. The framework is also designed to be flexible enough so that travelers can deviate from the framework and self-design an à la carte travel experience according to their individual tastes and preferences. TourBoarding facilitates the searching, communication, and arranging process, but leaves the final details to hosts and travelers who are responsible for making any actual exchange happen.

TourBoarding is also the first site to offer traveler and host exchanges that are grounded on the principle of reciprocity: both traveler and host give and receive a valuable benefit in the exchange. Both have an equally vested interest in ensuring the success of the exchange. To date, many TourBoarding exchanges have been completed with positive testimonials posted on the site, demonstrating that TourBoarding’s travel barter model is sound and viable.

More at: http://bignews.biz/?id=924149

WPP said The Midas Exchange will initially operate in the U.S., and that it was formed at the request of its clients. It will be managed as part of GroupM, and will be headed by Kathy Kladopoulos, who has been named president the unit. Most recently Kladopoulos worked as executive vice president and managing director of Carat Trade, a division of Aegis Group, which she launched nine years ago.

WPP’s high profile leap into the barter media field is interesting, because the holding company has a mixed history in the practice. J. Walter Thompson, before it was acquired by WPP, has one of the most famous scandals in the history of barter media, when during the 1980s, the head of the agency’s barter syndication unit was found to be billing clients for millions of dollars in TV advertising credits that never actually aired.

We congratulate GroupM and hope that the company does not follow the steps that occurred in the 1980′s.

Read the full article at http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=126746

The kicker? The sign up form didn’t work. I couldn’t even finish signing up.

The look and feel is good, the site isn’t one of the best I’ve seen, but isn’t terrible. But if the sign up form doesn’t work, how are you going to generate new members?

The official BNW first run rating? D-

• They gain a customer: when someone trades their products and services for equity in your business, they gain you as a customer. You might not be a cash paying customer right now but you are helping them build their asset base and sell their inventory. Also, as your business becomes profitable they will be able to gain profit in terms of cash too. There is also the possibility that in future you might become a cash paying customer.

• They gain an asset: When these businesses invest in kind in your business, they use their products and services to increase their asset base. If they would have sold their products in the market to a cash paying customer and then would have invested in a business it would have meant the same. However, now they are investing in a business whose growth will directly effect their business growth as you use their products in your business.

• Mutual benefits: There are other benefits too. Like they can use your business for advertising their enterprise and they can advertise you in turn. They can use your services or products and you give them a better deal than available in market as they are your benefactor. For example, you own a beauty salon and enter a barter trade with a cosmetic company. They supplied your business with necessary products in exchange for an equity share in it. Now, you are advertising their products to your customers. You also sell their products in your location and if their clients or associates use your salon you give them an additional discount. Hence, it is a good investment for them.

One might think that this might be a good proposition for the investor but why should a new business accept products and services instead of cash. The answer is simple it’s easier.

1. First and foremost it’s easier to gain investment in terms of products and services than in terms of cash. As mentioned earlier investing in a business involves risk and risking hard cash is more difficult than risking products and services. This has as much to do with human psychology as economics.

2. The Times of India provides advertising to up and coming businesses in return for equity shares in these businesses. The Bennett and Coleman group that owns this paper is one of the biggest media giants. They have experience in business they can share with others if they are a part of their network. Similarly, when you seek outside investment you gain not just from the investors’ products and services but also from their experience and their market standing.

3. Being an investment to an established business helps you increase your customer base. This is because these businesses have interest in your growth. They will refer their customers to you. They will help you establish market value and you can use their contacts for improving your business.

4. Also, some businesses want to invest in other businesses but for them cash investment is difficult as they do not have the necessary cash accumulated for major investment. Hence, you give such businesses a chance by taking investment in terms of products. As products are more readily available than cash.

When seeking finance you should remember that barter is the most effective way of equity financing.

The site is done up in a bright blue, which is an internet standard…for me it’s a little too bright, but let’s not let that stop us. The logo includes the requisite arrows and globe, which seem to be industry standards.

Let’s login…

Signing up gives you three options: one free and two paid with varying degrees of posting limits. I’m choosing free for the review, which includes 5 free posts. The second page has you give up email, username, and password info. Minimalist, my favorite.

An informational email promptly appeared in my email box, but was just to inform, not to confirm.

After clicking Start Now, then the system asks for all of the information that the other sites do to a certain extent, but less than most, thankfully.

A bright red button asking you to list an item is what you are greeted with next, and I am going to comply.

In the posting process I found a feature unavailable in the other platforms I’ve tested: a time length choice. You can post something for a day or three months and a nice variation between the two. For me, this is a great feature. If you want your post to expire in a week, it will automatically delist so you don’t have to delete it when the time passes.

Posting is painless…enter the details, link a picture, and you are off.

A global search of the site pulls up about a hundred or so listings, half of them for sale and about half for swapping, mostly in the New York area and South Carolina.

I doubt I’ll get any action on my chair and ottoman here in Utah, but the process is easy and if you are in that area around New York and South Carolina, this may be a good site for you. The interface is a little clunky looking, but functions nicely. The processes are quick and easy, which I appreciate.

Rating: B+

According to their web site, “The superfluid concept is informed and inspired by diverse thinking in alternative currency. –Everything from online game currency to Paul Glover’s Ithaca Hours. Conventional barter exchanges are of a bit less interest to us, and while superfluid.biz falls within the definition of barter exchange (and reports appropriately to the Internal Revenue Service), this is simply an aspect of what we do.”

My first attempt to sign up with the service ended with a timeout error. I have no idea whether or not I am signed up. Check out their site at https://superfluid.biz/