Electronics accessories manufacturer Belkin impressed me in two ways recently. First, check out the tabbed clamshell design of their Apple iPhone accessories packaging:

See the little pull-tab on the top right? No scissors, box-cutters, blowtorches or headaches required, you just pull it and the perforated plastic comes apart.

Second, a couple of weeks ago Belkin contributed a whole bunch of networking and power equipment to Alex Hillman's IndependentsHall coworking project in Philadelphia, which is now fully ensconced it its own space.

The Stash (uploaded by alexknowshtml, all rights reserved)

Here's more on the cooperative arrangement between Belkin and IndyHall. I've written previously about some of Belkin's innovative product designs -- I love the various form factors they offer for powerstrips. I think it's smart of them to support local, independent developers in Philadelphia as part of their outreach, product development, and marketing strategy. Congrats to the IndyHall folks as well for all of the great press!

Posted by dave coustan at 2:05 PM |

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I've been playing Scrabble with friends via the Facebook-embedded application Scrabulous, and when I went to play my turn today, I got the message below:

I have to award Scrabulous a best for this straightforward, honest, clear communication to their users. It lets us know that actual human beings build the application (which further endears us to it), that their code upgrade took some unexpected turns as new releases sometimes do, that they're open to help from the outside world to get things going quicker, and that they're taking some more time to get things right. Here's to hoping they get it all figured out quickly and with a minimum of pain.

Posted by dave coustan at 4:13 PM |

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I got the following email from the iTunes store today:

Dear Dave, Thank you for downloading "Not In Portland" from Lost, Season 3. The item you received had a minor, yet noticeable, quality issue. To remedy this problem, we placed a corrected copy of "Not In Portland" in your download queue. To begin downloading the new copy, click this link:

[the link was right here]

Or, you can open iTunes and select Check for Purchases from the Store menu. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact our customer service team by replying to this email.

[and then it was sent from an actual human with an actual name]

I hadn't noticed that there was a minor flaw in my video download. (I think) Apple decided it was worth it to point out to everyone who downloaded the episode, whether or not they complained or noticed. The fact that Apple pointed it out to me even though I didn't complain doesn't make me think any less of them. On the contrary, it shows they care about delivering the product they intend to deliver. I bet it was also more efficient for them to handle it this way rather than deal with only individuals who raised the issue.

The email was clear, humanly worded, and concise, and the remedy it offers is easy to use. A well-deserved best for emails and service like this.

Posted by dave coustan at 10:12 AM |

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Noah Kagan recently added a "submit a quote" and rotating quote display to OKDork.com's header image, and it's worthy of a best. It's a total click/refresh magnet, and it also provides something of some value to readers.

To add something, you just hit the "+" and then fill out a very short form.

I like that it offers readers something visible to participate in on the page, beyond regular blog comments. I think lots of people walk around with comment stage fright, especially if they've never gone through with commenting on a blog before. But a quote is light and easy and fun; it doesn't feel like a lasting record of some fleeting thought you had. It doesn't even have to be your quote. And when you're a frequent visitor to the site, having a way to leave a piece of yourself that others can see makes you feel like you're a part of the site. it's not quite as public as showing a photo/profile via MyBlogLog, but still personalized and meaningful.

Posted by dave coustan at 2:39 PM |

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My first double-best. The Huxtable Dog Sweater I wrote about when I gave Etsy.com its first best last December is long gone now. I'm giving the site a best again today for a feature I just noticed after visiting Etsy this morning via a blog called Miss Malaprop.

The feature is called Alchemy. eBay has something like this where you can create a Want It Now listing (sort of the opposite of "buy it now," though not quite) if there's some object you don't see for sale but want to find out there. Etsy's "Alchemy" lets you ask Etsy's talented merchants if they'll agree to make the gifts, clothes, and art objects you've dreamed up but can't make yourself. This way, getting no results on an Etsy search isn't a dead-end. Since this is the world of hand-crafting, with Alchemy you can request an object or combination of objects that doesn't even exist yet. Want a hand-knit Google sweater? A scale diorama of one of the hatches from TV's Lost? Just ask the crafters if they'll do it for you, and how much they'll charge.

Whatever you dream up, you place a free custom request and fill in some details, and then crafters bid on the price and right to make that thing for you. You can also make a request to a particular seller if there's some crafter's specific handiwork you want to entrust with the project.

Looking at the current list of Alchemy requests, there's everything from a Baby Luigi Baseball Cap to a Kimono Dress to Pumpkin-flavored Chapstick. If you put in your requests now, you could probably get all of your crazy ideas made for you well in time for the holidays.

Posted by dave coustan at 2:45 PM |

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Another excellent Lifehacker.com find. If you let it, earFeeder takes a look at the music on your computer and prepares a custom RSS feed for you with ticket announcements, pre-sales, news, and album releases. You can take that feed and add it to the RSS Reader of your choice. If that reader happened to be Reader.earthlink.net, I'd commend you on your discriminating taste in readers.

If you're worried about the privacy and security implications of letting them take a look at your music, earFeeder's privacy page makes them sound pretty trustworthy.

Each step is really well marked and easy to follow.

I think the service is worthy of a best because it's an extremely simple and straightforward process, offers some powerful ways to make changes to your feed later, and fills an obvious need for music (and particularly concert) lovers. You can do all sorts of customizations to create artist-related feeds for yourself at sites like Eventful.com, but for a quick and painless process that takes you from having a bunch of music on your computer to having an ongoing stream of information about that music, earFeeder is tough to beat.

One of the neatest things about the feed it creates is that they give you a link under each entry that takes you back to the feed customization page. You can even remove artists you don't like, right inside of your RSS Reader. I don't know if I have any other feeds in my sources list that let me change what content is in the feed on the fly.

If you don't mind giving one-time permission for a program to look at the music on your computer, give it a try and let me know what you think.

Posted by dave coustan at 4:47 PM |

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I only got hip to it recently, but judging by the archives Dreamhost's blog has been around for at least a year. It's due for a best. Whether they're talking about a legendary company kickball game, revealing some of the spam complaint calls they get, or taking on the issue of large scale outage problems head-on and with aplomb, it's all good stuff. It's just one of many nice customer communication tools they've got.

They publish less frequently than many blogs (maybe once every week or two), but each entry is meatier, better produced, and funnier than what you'd probably get if they did it every day. It's just a good read, even if you're not a Dreamhost customer and aren't shopping for a web host. And if you are a customer of theirs (I've been hosting stuff with them since 1999), it's as much a source of information as it is entertainment.

You can use this button:

to add the Dreamhost Blog's feed to your Reader account.

(Update: fixed a couple of typos and the URL for adding to Reader)

Posted by dave coustan at 11:35 AM |

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When I saw the Applemaggots tag in myFavorites last night, I guess I assumed it was some enthusiastic Apple computer hater. But it turns out that Paul L, whoever and wherever he is, has collected some extensive information about maggots that hang around apples. I love that. It's almost better than a 'heh'. A heh that could come in handy some day.

Bless you, Paul L, for inadvertently bringing me something I may have never seen otherwise. If you read this, I'd love to hear how these ended up in your myFavorites. Are you an entomologist? Homeowner with a problem? Botanist? Hobbyist?

I also heard from Travis and the dev team today that they installed a new version of myFavorites yesterday. Check the myFavorites blog for the overview.

Posted by dave coustan at 2:23 PM |

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I just received another D Conference report from Craig Forman, EarthLink's President of Value Added Services. In this entry he offers a best quote and funniest moment of the day:

"Sir Howard Stringer, CEO of consumer electronics giant Sony, provides the quote of the day: 'People want the status quo to continue long after the quo has no status,' he declared.

Photo of Sir Howard Stringer courtesy of Dan Farber's Flickr set.

In context, he was talking about trying to rigidly hold on to outmoded business models when technology has effectively bypassed them, and he specifically meant the music industry -- where Sony through its Joint Venture with German's Bertelsmann is a huge global player. But overall it was effectively the theme for today's second day at the D Conference.

Not one of the industry leaders at this conference expresses confidence in the long-term certainty of their current business model. In session after session, and in the conference hallways, folks such as Disney's Bob Iger, Yahoo!'s Terry Semel, Comcast's Steve Burke, and EarthLink's founder and board member (and Helio CEO) Sky Dayton (on a panel with SF Mayor Gavin Newsom), talked about how new models are changing the way consumers and executives are thinking about their products and business models. Doing things differently, and executing faster, is their focus.

It's a thought-provoking moment, which led my colleague Mike Lunsford and I to talk to many of our partners and colleagues here about how we are looking to encourage integration and usefulness across all our Earthlink products. In fact, in response to a question I asked, both Discovery Communications CEO Judith McHale and Martha Stewart Living CEO Susan Lyne said they are organizing their content-centric businesses in wholly new ways to create new sorts of programming for the internet.

We'll see, of course, how all that turns out.

Continue reading "From D: Times Are Changing..."

Posted by dave coustan at 9:51 PM |

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I saw this little note atop my Flickr.com user page this morning:

The full text reads:

Hey! Is Flickr acting weirder than normal for you? We see it too! Please, check this FlickrBugs thread for updates.

Couple of notes about what I love about this:

• You can't miss it. Without shouting at you, I bet it gets the attention of the vast majority of people who pass through the login screen of Flickr. In fact, even if you don't log in, you still see it at the top of all of Flickr's user pages.
  
• But it's not alarmist. It doesn't tell me that the sky is falling or to go away for a while. It does a good job of putting the issue neatly in context.
  
• It talks like a person. It's conversational enough for it to fit the context it's in, without sacrificing the information it's trying to convey. It makes you think there are actual people working at Flickr.
  
• Again, you can't miss it. Flickr *wants* you to know that their site might be acting funky and why, rather than hoping you don't notice. I like Yahoo a lot, but they're a big company, and it's pleasing to me that Flickr has been able to maintain this open, conversational approach to user communication even as part of a big big company.
  
• It links to more information.There's a message board thread about bugs that both Flickr staff and users are invited to contribute to. It's nice to have a dependable place to go for answers, rather than having to rely on outside blog commenters who are doing their best to piece together as complete a picture as they can as outsiders.
  
• They don't over- or undercommit. The staff message at the top of the bugs thread ends with "Sorry everyone! We know this is totally weird. We're on it, and will resolve it asap." It's an apology for the user frustration, it's believable, and it's human.

Runner-up: FeedBurner.com.

Posted by dave coustan at 10:27 AM |

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This is sort of a pre-emptive best, since the game hasn't been released in the U.S. yet. It's called SingStar. For some reason I keep calling it SongStar. Hopefully I didn't call it SongStar too many times as I spoke to Kevin Mason, the game's lead designer and holder of one of the world's most awesome jobs.

SingStar designer Kevin Mason shatters glass

Sony and Nintendo are both making a lot of noise about trying to reach a broader audience with their next-generation consoles. They want to make gamers out of moms and dads and people who have no interest in macho first-person shooters and sports games. One of the questions I've been asking myself as I wander E3 is, how are they trying to make that happen, and will it work?

SingStar is a great step in the right direction, and it's emblematic of a bigger movement in console gaming. Read on for my thoughts.

Continue reading "Best And Most Infectious Demo Booth At E3 2006"

Posted by dave coustan at 10:37 AM |

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I have to hand Amazon.com a well-earned best for shoppertainment. Their Gold Box feature feels like a free slot machine sitting there on the top right of the page. It shouldn't, and grown ups should know better, but it still compels me to click every time I see it. For the uninitiated, this is a section of the site that gives you up to ten special sale items that you have something like 60 minutes to purchase or pass up. You can only look at each offer once, and you can only open your gold box once a day.

Look at those puppy dog eyes. I'd give that gold box the shirt off my back.

Whenever I find myself on Amazon the first thing I do is hit the gold box and flip through my offers. I'm not sure why. I'm not sure if I've ever bought anything from it, but there's something about the thrill of receiving ten limited-time offers purportedly chosen just for me.

Continue reading "Amazon's Gold Box And Refrigerator Staring"

Posted by dave coustan at 9:38 AM |

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This is pretty neat. Let's see if it works. If you have a microphone on your computer or connected to it, try using the link below to leave me an audio message:

The good people at Odeo blogged the other day about this neat little embedded audio recorder they built. Odeo is a site that lets you record and share audio through your computer or phone, and find podcasts and other audio recordings. It's free to sign up for a membership and get access to the tools. It took me five seconds, and then I was able to get the embedded audio recorder you see above.

If a good reason presents itself, maybe I'll mess around with Odeo and try creating an audio blog entry. I've been told I have a face for radio.

Posted by dave coustan at 4:20 PM |

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This best is about the idea of wireless photo transmission between your digital camera and your computer and/or printer.

Pictures tend to stay awhile on my digital camera. Rather than traveling the few feet from the camera to my computer, they take up semi-permanent residence on the storage card in my camera, often outstaying their welcome by weeks and months. I forcibly evict them every once in a while when I feel guilty for having them there. But if pictures are meant to be seen and/or printed, the sooner I can get them out the better.

So what has made it this way for me?

Continue reading "Best New Digital Camera Feature"

Posted by dave coustan at 1:53 PM |

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As if CES wasn't confusing enough, there are two movements in the world of web video right now. One is broadcast content being put out on the web for you to buy and view on your computer, iPod, phone, etc. -- like at Google and Yahoo -- and the other is the world of personal video production and sharing. This post is about the latter.

We all seem to have plenty of time to shoot video, but editing what we've shot? Apparently not so much. It irks me that internet video has gotten so much attention lately, when most pieces you'll find online are almost unwatchable.

I bet if you counted the number of video clips appearing online on video sharing sites like Revver.com and YouTube.com, there would be very few pieces that had a single edit in them. For the most part, people are just hitting record on their camera, letting it run, and then throwing the clip online. If the lack of editing is a deliberate choice, fine. But most of these clips could probably benefit from some type of editing.

There's great potential there, but it's not being used for much yet.

When you talk about online video, many are quick to mention Lazy Sunday which made the rounds a couple of weeks ago and even popped up on the Arts section front page of the New York Times. It was actually a video segment produced for broadcast on Saturday Night Live and then distributed later via the web. Talent aside, it doesn't count as "web video" unless you are talking about stuff produced specifically with the basic tools, time commitment, and technique of the average web user.

On the recommendation of fellow CESCamper Chris Pirillo, I checked out muvee, software that does the editing for you. It's an interesting solution to the problem, though it's better for some things than others. More on that shortly. But first, how did we get to this point where everybody shoots but nobody edits?

Continue reading "More From CES: Why Does No One Edit? You Should Edit."

Posted by dave coustan at 10:00 AM |

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There were a ton of lame products at CES, from iPod sharpeners to bluetooth paperweights to "computer machines." I've narrowed the field down to just a few.

The much-anticipated Dorit OS

You can't tell from the photo, but this was one of the most popular booths at the show. I tried to get an interview, but as you can see the developer of Dorit OS was busy the whole time fielding calls from the bigs on his cellphone. It was a pretty gutsy move to present such a sparse product booth at the Las Vegas Convention Center main hall.

Two more below.

Continue reading "Best Of The Worst Technologies At CES"

Posted by dave coustan at 10:26 AM |

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This best is a mishmash of useful/wonderful/just odd holiday-related things I found on the world wide web this week, err, year. The only qualification for inclusion in this list is sincerity of motive. You'll find no parodies or jokey set-ups here, just earnest holiday goodness.

Nominations are still open if you have any suggestions.

Continue reading "Best Robotic Dreidel"

Posted by dave coustan at 12:23 PM |

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I'm so glad it's still for sale. A friend pointed out the Huxtable dog sweater on Etsy.com a few weeks ago, and it's been burning a hole in my bookmarks ever since.

This best is Etsy.com.

Etsy.com is a marketplace for independent crafters to set up their own shops, all networked together. It's a great place to find unique, well-made, inexpensive gifts that you can feel good about, because the vast majority of the profits go to the person who made them. And this isn't "macaroni necklaces" type crafting, this is "knit toddler sweater with a skull on it" crafting. Mostly.

Continue reading "Best Huxtable Dog Sweater"

Posted by dave coustan at 10:34 AM |

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