Delicious Library 2

I was introduced to the website for Delicious Library several weeks ago, and since that time the idea of it has gestated in my mind like the chestburster from Alien. Rather than having my sternum sundered by its birthing act, however, I will probably opt to install it on my desktop.

The Delicious Library concept is smart - it creates a catalog of all your possessions and arranges them on its aesthetically pleasing interface. By far their best achievement is in their visual design; they've made it fun to look at it and (apparently) easy to use. As we all know, smart design is what separates great services from annoying ones

Read the description on the main page and tell me if you're intrigued. The two main functions of having a "catalog" of what you own seem useful to me... to remember if you loan something to a friend, or to have a complete list to give to your insurance company in case of an incident.

It costs $40. Would you use Delicious Library?

Home Workspace Ideas

Our friend C-Mac at Smile Like You Mean It wrote a very interesting blog about creating a home workspace for your personal business needs. I like a lot of her suggestions.

Car Design: McLaren MP4-12C

In the spirit of our design blog friends Buzz Beast and Smile Like You Mean It, here is a quick look at the newly announced McLaren MP4-12C supercar.

Buzz Beast

We just got a new blog follower of FIWK, so I looked at Buzz Beast to see what their blog is all about. It's a pretty cool site. They use the Google Blogger back end but have a custom url at buzz-beast.com and I like the slickness and color of the blog layout. They also have a recent comments section, like we do.

The site focuses on cool product design, which is a blog topic covered by Caitlin, among others. For instance, Buzz Beast just featured a post about the design of the new Facebook office, which is a topic we recently discussed on FIWK.

Wired: Craigslist and Simplicity

Two great articles in the most recent Wired Magazine - the first is titled The Tragedy of Craigslist and the second is titled The Good Enough Revolution" (it's about the popularity of simple-to-use technology). There is some parallel logic in the two articles that I find interesting.

Limitations of the Blog Format

We've only been doing this for two days and I have a few issues with the way Google Blogger works. Especially in the context of our normal interaction on Gmail, which is like a running conversation taking place in a series of email threads.

1. Regurgitation - we only post stuff to the blog that we've already posted on Gmail. The redundancy eliminates the thrill of new conversations, and reduces creativity in our thinking and posting. If the blog doesn't take on a character or a format of its own (i.e. having some longer, more well-thought out pieces, or having original content) then it probably won't have staying power in our daily discussion routines

2. Design and Format -
a. posts are always in chronological order of original post... unlike the discussion format of Gmail, which always pops up new comments to the top of the thread
b. new comments are hard to find, partially because of item A and partially because features like bolding the new comments (or titles of blogs with new comments) doesn't happen like it does in Gmail... a very satisfying feedback feature
c. blog comments and posts jump around several different windows, unlike the natural flow of opening new threads in Gmail, which always feels like one continuous format in which you're just shifting around discussions and customizing on the fly

3. Readership - in Gmail we throw stuff out there for a larger audience of acquaintances... should we get people to start commenting on here? The bigger discussion enriches the content by pulling in some passionate perspectives out of the blue, like Dan the Doctor getting fired up in the healthcare post

4. Community - if we want to make this more public, I can start getting involved in some like-minded community discussions and leading people back to the blog... let me know your thoughts