Friday Drive In: Love You All The Time

Here's a new short film, "Love You All The Time", by indie filmmaker Ethan Weinstock. Check out Ethan's film, "Red Square, Blue Square"  at New York's Mix Festival, November 14th - 19th. 

Palatable Consumption

Ah, the dilemma of the American consumer: you hate those ugly box stores taking over  your town and kicking out small business, but then where else are you supposed to buy things like socks and laundry detergent?

And if you're that endangered species, the American craftsmen, where do you sell your wares to the masses without quitting your day job to haul an awning and a folding table around the festival circuit?

Well Etsy.com solves both those problem. Etsy is an online marketplace for people to both buy and sell handmade goods.

For shoppers, the attractive interface makes it a pleasure to browse through their huge selection of available goods which includes everything from independent music and publications to toilet paper holders, furniture, and clothes. You can use a more traditional by-category-search (or just use the search box, duh) but you can also use one of their many tools for alternate browsing. Their color browser let's you select any color using a fun interface and then shows you all products available that incorporate that color. Choose as many colors at a time as you like and move items around as you browse. Time Machine enables you to browse through the most recently listed items by clicking and dragging through images on an interactive page. Treasury lets you browse through user-selected "top items". Come across a user who seems to share your tastes? Connections creates a diagram of items they've purchased. When you click an item, it shows you what other users have purchased it and all the other things those customers have purchased (and on and on). By far the coolest option is the Geolocator, which lets you browse the most recently added items by location, using an awesome interactive globe.

  

For sellers, sign up and creation of your own store (with the address yourusername.etsy.com) is free. You can customize your page with a banner and bio (think Blogger customization). Listing an item costs 20 cents per quantity, includes 5

 images, and stays up for 4 months. The shops are an attractive and easy-to use (both for you and the shopper) way to present your goods. Check out Hearts and Laser Beams' shop to get an idea of navigation, look, and feel. The Etsy blog, The Storque, as well as the Forums section provide useful tips and ideas.

Howipedia

Everyone knows Wikipedia by now (don't you? I mean my mom knows about Wikipedia by now) and it's popularity has spawned a Wikilution. Wiking for business is a new fad (move over business blogs!) and now there's the Million Dollar Wiki (doomed to failure as it's natural links could never overwhelm the spam links it will draw which will piss off Google no-end). But no Wikis seem to be able to live up to the standard set by Wikipedia.

But someone finally found a wiki niche that just makes sense. wikiHow is, in it's own words, "a collaborative writing project aiming to build the world's largest how-to manual." And, from what I see, it's a success. Keep getting an error 1418 on your iPod Classic? Well just put "error 1418 iPod" into wikiHow's search, and you get this. Too many martinis last night? Check out How to Get Rid of a Hangover. There are also plenty of articles that would fall under "advice" more than "how-to", such as "How to be Happy After a Divorce" or "How to Live Life to the Fullest"

And of course, being a wiki, you can add articles too. Know how to play the kazoo with your nose? Share with the class, dude! You can add your skills to the likes of "How to Get a Stubborn Horse to Jump", "How to Enjoy a Kung Fu Movie With a Friend Who Doesn't Enjoy Kung Fu", "How to Diagnose and Replace a Failed PC Power Supply", and "How to Copyright a Song."

The Return of Web Diversions

After our long hiatus, Web Diversions is making it's triumphant return. We have a new look and a new schedule. Here's the skinny:

New Web Diversions posts will be made every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday starting Monday, September 24th. Instead of Flash Friday, we will now have the Friday Drive-In, with all different kinds of movie content including short films, animation, and whatever else we can get our filthy paws on.

If you'd like to suggest a website or video for review, submit your own site or video, or if you have questions, you can now Email Web Diversions.

Also, much thanks goes out to Alexis Jakobson for her help with Web Diversion's re-design. You can thank her for that sweet eye candy known as our new logo. Check out her I am Janet! page to see more of her work.