By Julie Espinosa
A new online company has a solution for your unwanted DVDs you have or may get this holiday season.
Peerflix, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based startup, is an inexpensive, easy-to-use platform for trading DVDs. It?s like online peer-to-peer networks?except legal and dealing with physical media.
?The really is the gift that keeps on giving,? said Billy McNair, Peerflix co-founder. ?DVDs are a popular holiday gift. With our service, people are able to take those DVDs after they watch them and trade them for ?Batman Begins? or something else they want to watch.?
Peerflix found in a survey that people watch 60 percent of their DVDs only once or twice. The company provides a network to trade and basically extend the life of DVDs. Anyone with at least one unwanted DVD could start the service.
Some Peerflix members use the service as an alternative to the increasingly expensive how much? online DVD rental services, while others use it to acquire more movies. Either way, Peerflix charges 99 cents per trade. Members can keep DVDs for as long as they want and trade them again at any time.
New users can try Peerflix with a free trial by logging into www.Peerflix.com. Members establish a list of DVDs they have and DVDs they want. If you have a copy of ?Napoleon Dynamite? that someone in Texas wants, you send off the disc in a mailer provided by Peerflix. Then you can request a copy of ?Lord of the Rings? from New York. With each completed trade out, members earn credit called ?peerbux? ? which are assigned based on a DVD?s popularity?that allow them to request new titles.
Peerflix guarantees each DVD will be playable and an original copy, and if someone receives a broken or pirated disc, Peerflix reimburses the member and takes action against users who break the trading rules.
Peerflix has been trying to be the leader in the DVD-trading market and it experienced over 300 percent growth in recent months. Now that its inventory has grown to 125,000 titles and its membership to 75,000 users, the company plans to expand trade into other media like video games and CDs.
?There?s a strong ownership contingent in the college demographic, McNair said. ?As a budget-conscious college student, I?m going to think, ?I can use these 5 DVDs I own to get Batman Begins or Star Wars or something.??
McNair said Peerflix is looking for college student representatives who will spread the service by word-of-mouth to friends and peers in exchange for money and other incentives. More information is available at www.peerflixoncampus.com.
