Zilok Allows You To Rent Anything from Anyone

They basically offer a service where anyone can rent anything he/she owns to anyone. The service was launched in France a few weeks ago and opens tomorrow in the US (accessible at us.zilok.com). It has attracted so far a few thousand users and even generated some business. Here is how it works: Once registered on the website you can add any object you own for rental purposes. You define the price, the area you can cover, and the rental conditions (period, deposit,..). Zilok will issue for you a rental agreement that you will use directly with the renter. A user can use several tools to find what is searching to rent for including a search engine, a category directory or google map mashup. Once he identifies what is searching for, he will contact the owner and the closing is not happening on the website but in real life. Zilok does not provide a payment system or a third party deposit service. But like on standard marketplaces they have created a reputation system to filter easily power-owners or power-renters and to optimize the process.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/05/zilok-allows-you-to-rent-anything-from-anyone/

http://us.zilok.com/