The guys at TechCrunch reviewed a Houston startup that’s been covered by Startup Houston, Natuba. Overall, a lame article as the author did not really take the time to review the site, but the comment stream is great, especially if you know who the people are.

Check it out.

Online marketplaces are not new to the web, but specialty marketplaces focusing in on the long tail are cropping up all over. Last week I profiled Bubblevine and recently I came across Love2Trade, a free trading community that allows you to buy, sell and trade items, simply by trading the items you want for the items you don’t want.

Love2Trade’s differentiation from other similar sites is that there is no transaction fee on trades made between users. Typical free trade or barter sites tend to be more of a classified ad listing service (such as Craigslist or backpage). In addition to posted listings the company has a partnership with Oodle to provide visitors access to listings from several other sources (such as eBay, Facebook Classifieds, backpage and others).

Another nifty feature to the site is that they also provide item ratings/feedback and user communication via “Trade Zones” and “Zone Talk”. Houston based Ash Metry, founder of Love2Trade told me that, “any trader can also start a “Trade Zone” of a smaller community and invite friends and other traders that they might have something in common with. They can also engage in forum style discussions via Zone Talk.”

“I started with this idea after realizing that most people, including myself, purchase stuff that ends up sitting in their garage,” stated Metry. “The idea of Love2Trade is to make use of those purchases by trading them for things that you actually need instead of spending additional money on more stuff. We also wanted to build our business concept around the idea of providing a free service and donating part of our revenue to charities, non-profit organizations and causes that we believe meet new and emerging needs in communities, nations, and the world. We believe that by supporting these organizations and causes we will be able to help others in need.”

If you play around with the site, you can use the coupon code ‘grace’ which would give up to $5.00 off any featured ad.

Local entrepreneur Monica Yoo, sister of serial entrepreneur and Natuba founder Richard Yoo, has just launched her first venture, Bubblevine, a marketplace for college students within a school commuinity to buy and sell stuff to fellow students in a safe and comfortable environment: campus. 

“While I was a junior in college at Trinity, I was looking for apartment furniture on Craigslist but found that the stuff I needed was all over town, often in sketchy areas that I wasn’t comfortable going to,” says Monica. ”Meanwhile, college kids were throwing away stuff at semester’s end. So I set out to create a market on campus for selling and buying stuff and Bubblevine was born.”

Bubblevine is free for students and only for students (you need a college email address to join). The intent is to develop a micro-local marketplace on campus so non-students are excluded from buying or selling items. Current schools listed on Bubblevine are:

• University of Texas at Austin
• Texas A&M at College Station
• Houston Baptist University
• Rice University
• University of Houston
• University of St. Thomas
• Trinity University
• University of Texas at San Antonio

Additional schools will be added over time.