LendList now works with more regions worldwide.  Specifically, it now supports addresses and city names that contain accents or none ascii characters.  Welcome residents of Montréal, Québec!

I’ll be appearing on a call-in show on Victoria’s CFAX 1070 today at 3:05pm to talk about LendList.org. It would be great to have users call in. The number is 250-386-1161.

If you are visiting after hearing the show, welcome!

The good folks at IdealBite have recommended LendList along with a host of useful swapping sites in today’s Daily Tip. The other sites are great for trading or giving away free stuff, so compliment LendList nicely. Personally speaking, IdealBite is the only email newsletter I subscribe to and is well worth it.

I recently got back from backpacking around Peru and Ecuador. Before the trip I looked at buying a telephoto lense to capture closeups of the animals I expected to see on the Galapagos Islands. The lense I wanted was priced at about $800 locally and $600 on the internet.

However, I was able to find a LendLister with a zoom lense that would do the trick. It made all the difference in the world in terms of my photos. See the results below. I gave him an extra compact flash card as a thanks, got the photos I wanted and saved at least $600. Thanks Makana!

Amanda and Megan over at Consumerism Challenge have made borrowing through LendList.org their challenge for the month of April. Each month this blog prompts their challengers to take on a specific objective for the month, in order to “expose ourselves to different environmental and social issues” and “make change happen.” They’ve created their own LendList group for the challenge but if you’ve been using LendList.org you are already participating in this month’s challenge. Nonetheless I encourage you to take a new step each month just as they are.

A member contacted me with this story about how much they were able to save through LendList, and how this borrowing arrangement was beneficial for both the borrower and the lender.

Dave was going snowboarding more and more regularly but didn’t own a board. Renting was getting expensive. He found a good deal on snowboard boots because it’s hard to borrow or rent well fitting clean boots. He looked at buying a board, and would have had to spend about $550 for a board and bindings of the right size and performance level.

He then took a look at LendList. He found a friend of a friend with a board long and wide enough for his 6′2″, 200 lbs. frame.

So now he borrows his snowboard whenever he goes to ride. He gets the board waxed each time, and gets the edges tuned when needed, which is still far cheaper than renting, and leaves the lender with a board that’s always in top condition.

The two acquaintances aren’t the same ability so there is no issue with borrowing the board and not inviting the person to ride, since they wouldn’t ride together anyway. Some time it might happen that they want to both go riding on the same day, but Dave has found two others with similar sized boards he can borrow if that occurs.

LendList.org means big savings for the borrower, and in this case the lender too!

We here at LendList.org make a big deal about why lending is good, but equally as important is borrowing. Obviously, to lend an item requires someone to borrow it but it goes beyond this.

When it comes to the environment, the borrower is the person who is actively reducing consumption. The lenders are facilitators. They have the benefit of owning the item and using it with zero hassle. The borrower is the one making the decision not to buy an item. Not to own it, but to go out of their way to borrow it from someone.

By borrowing from someone you are giving them a tremendous dose of encouragement. You are saying that it was worth it for them to post that item, that their possessions are of wider value, and you are allowing them to contribute to a reduction in consumption.
We need lenders and borrowers. There is no shame in being a borrower, even if (especially if) you have very few items to lend out, or have posted items but haven’t lent many, if any, out.

So let’s actively borrow what we want and need. If you still feel guilty, do something good with the money you save

The friend functionality I discussed in my previous post is now in place. Add a profile picture and import your contacts to see if they are members, then invite the ones that aren’t. Check it out and let us know what you think in the comments or via the suggestion form.

With some of the groups exceeding 500 items and many members wanting to sift through multiple groups and dozens of friends, we’ve had to make a number of improvements to the application.

Searching and browsing:
You can filter searches of all your groups and friends by category now. Further, if you leave the search field blank and just select a category, you can see a list of all the items in a category you have available to you across all your friends and groups.

Category Stacking:
Categories within groups can now be expanded and collapsed for easier browsing. The page load time is still a bit high for some of the bigger groups but we plan to address that by not loading the items for a collapsed category until that category is expanded. Stay tuned!

The launch party took place on Friday and was a tremendous hit. We had 70+ show up, sign up and learn about the site. Thanks again to everyone involved and particularly Gallery O - Contemporary for the use of the space.