I'm very excited. The first piece of work I've done for Measure Map is now live.

I spent a good portion of the last few weeks brainstorming this design with Jeff and Jen and I think we came up with something simple, accessible, and fun... but mostly I'm just excited to have been a part of the project thus far.

There will be more to come before and after the yet-to-be-determined release date of the Measure Map service. Keep checking in with Jeff to get the latest news and be sure to submit your email address at MeasureMap.com if you'd like to be invited to test the app, or be notified when it becomes publickly available.

Measure Map is the first web traffic and stats package designed just for blogs. It is also the first product designed and developed internally at Adaptive Path. The tool will help bloggers understand trends at their site, and help them to better serve their visitors. Measure Map's simple, clean interface will make sense of the numbers, and setup is a quick, painless, 1 minute process. Find out more at measuremap.com.

Blog This!You can easily blog interesting web content with Flock, in just a few clicks.Example: 1. Highlight a passage on a web page that you would like to blog about. 2. Right-click that selection and choose Blog This. 3. The blog editor opens with that selection already inserted. Not only that, the selection is properly formatted as a Blockquote and appropriate citation is included.

Flock

While I'd love to be able to find the time to do a proper roundup of recent online productivty suites and email apps.. That's something of a herculean task. In the meantime, I'll just mention that the Goowy public beta is out there and has far exceed my expectations.

The sole Flash suite out there fighting a wave of Ajaxian productivity suites and email doodads (read: Zimbra, Roundcube, et al), Goowy certainly had potential, but also the stink of the many failed Flash apps to come before it. Goowy, however, has so far proven itself to be a quick, intuitive, and pleasant experience. Some might have sought to hide the fact that this is a Flash app at all, as it's clean lines and svelt aesthetic seem to blur the line, but alas! The good people at Goowy fly the Flash flag proudly, as any right click will instantly reveal the app's true nature.

The Goowy desktop worries me a bit. There's nothing overly iffy about it, it has a news aggregater, an inbox, and an unobtrusize look, but I'm always wary of solutions that offer me yet another 'desktop'. If the aggregation were as powerful and comfortable as Netvibes, this might be a particularly useful state. I'm sure additional data sources are coming.

The mail interface should be instantly familiar, and the folder structure is typical and flexible. I didn't have any luck getting Goowy to play nice with my existing POP email accounts, but I'm sure that will eventually be a transparent feature.

The highlight for me was the games. I don't want games. I don't want to sign up for email and get a 'community', or a chat client or a bundle of games, but as soon as I clicked on the games button, my eyes focused on Sonic's spikey blue head. Immediately, I clicked on said head, and found myself immersed in a genuine platformer, right there in a Flash popup window. It was truly a blast and when I completed the first level and was congratulate in questionable English "Sonic got trough act 1!", I decided to do this write-up.

I'll have to spend some time with Goowy to decide whether it's really a viable alternate, but so far, I'm impressed. My gut tells me that I may end up with a cleaner, more streamlined approach, such as Roundcube. Either way, it'll be better than Squirrel Mail. Man, I hate Squirrel Mail.

Amazon has made no secret of their original aim: to be an online store from which one could buy anything. Turns out, they mean it. They've quietly pushed out new sub-category of their Health and Beauty section (which, itself is still in beta), called Sex and Sensuality. This sub-category is not reachable by browsing and is not listed in the Health and Beauty sub-category listing page. How do you get there? You have to search.

Once you're in, you're in, and many of the typical Amazonian features are available to you. You can rate or review a product, see related products, and the section becomes fully browsable from inside. I have yet to actually have a sex product recommended to me, but there is indeed a browsing history that's currently telling me I've recently viewed a "make Your Own Dildo Kit." This information seems to persist in the Recently Viewed items box, even after you leave the section, which is a questionable move on Amazon's part. I'm left to wonder what wodnerful treats may pop up in my Gold Box or user store when next I sign in, and a part of me is worried that someone walking by might notice that I've recently been perusing both HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide and Penis Rambone Black Penis Huge 18 Inch Dildo.

So... when next you find yourself wondering how best to procure a massive rubber dong, think of Amazon. But do bear in mind that your Amazon Prime 2-day shipping discount doesn't apply to most of these items.

Thanks (and no judgement) to Frank for pointing this out to me.