Swappers, put on your party hats! Today, Swapsity is turning 2 years old. Over the last year, we've moved from private beta to public beta, enjoyed the media spotlight, added great new tools to the website, engaged members with public events and heard some amazing Swapsity barter stories.

The launch from private to public beta generated plenty of media buzz with Swapsity being covered by CP24 WebNation's Amber Mac, Omni Television, The Toronto Sun, The Toronto Star, The Ottawa Citizen, CBC Radio and BlogTo. CTV Ottawa loved Swapsity enough to feature it as their website of the week. Mentions of Swapsity were found in the Globe and Mail, NOW Magazine, SheKnows.com and ParentCentral.ca. It's been a steady stream of almost 20 different outlets in all. It was fantastic to see the media embrace Swapsity and recognize the benefits of barter. To read some of the accolades, head to our media page.

Hands-on workshops are new to our repertoire this year. The workshops, open to Swapsity members as well as the public, go hand-in-hand with bartering. Workshop topics run the gamut of green living, saving money or de-cluttering your space. This year, we also organized a summer swap and sale extravaganza and are planning more swap events in September. The events reflect our core values and emphasis on eco-friendly and clutter-free living, recycling as well as consumer consciousness.

Since the beginning, Swapsity has certainly made a noticeable impact on many of our members' lives and they've shared some awesome stories with us. Inspired by these savvy swappers, we started sharing their swap stories with the rest of the community. Among the noteworthy swaps that we've featured for you, we've seen about 65 children's books traded for a Thai massage, Japanese lessons for art lessons, a car for home renovations, a haircut for art supplies and one summer cottage for another, to name a few.

On top of it all, we continued to improve the Swapsity site by adding the matching tool to pair swappers, Multi-Add to streamline posting several items at a time, and video listings to enhance the online swapping process and experience.

We couldn't have done any of this without your support, so to you we dedicate this anniversary. To celebrate and thank you, we will be giving away some freebies after the long weekend. Stayed tuned to our Facebook Fan page and newsletter to get in on the action!

In the coming year, look out for even more swapping opportunities, fantastic events and plenty of innovation for swapping online. It just keeps getting better!