I’ve written before about my love for Paperbackswap. I’ve made a tiny bit of use of their sister site Swapacd, and I knew Swapadvd existed, but I hadn’t used it… until recently. I was looking at a small stack of DVDs I meant to get rid of, and finally the obvious occurred to me.

As with PBS (Paperbackswap), the simplifying assumption is that all DVDs are of equal value – send someone a box set with 6 DVDs and you get 6 credits. The wish list is more complicated than with PBS, where it’s a straightforward queue based on who requested it first. You prioritize your Swapadvd list, and can gain or lose ground in the queue based on how you’ve prioritized it. Maybe you wished for it longer ago, but someone else can get it first because they loved it more.

A DVD costs only a couple of dollars to mail, so sending one is comparable to what a rental used to be.

Some things I’ve received: Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, three seasons of Supernatural, Stardust, Taxi Driver, Pan’s Labyrinth. I’m currently waiting for the first two seasons of Arrested Development. And when I’m done with things I can flip them so they don’t just clutter up the house.