Product Trends Magazine

About the company:"Over half a million people have trusted Esurance with their auto insurance coverage. That’s because, along with our commitment to quality customer service, our insurance credentials ensure that you have coverage you can count on. Esurance is rated A (Excellent) by A.M. Best, a leading, independent rating organization. Our corporate parent provides extensive industry know-how and financial stability, so you know we’ll be there for you when you need us."

The big pitch: 24/7 customer service, instant online approval and proof of insurance, save hundreds on your auto insurance today!

One of the beautiful things about the internet is that it has the ability to make many of the tasks that used to take us months, happen instantaneously. Or at least, it should. Yet, oddly, many car insurance companies still work the old-fashioned way, asking you to bring or fax in copious copies of forms and applications so they can take weeks figuring out your rate. But not everyone is slow off the mark when it comes to taking full advantage of the online world for insurance, and at Esurance, they’re forging a big reputation by making things fast, simple, and pretty darn cheap.

When you click the Esurance link and go to their main page, you won’t find a dazzling variety of options and animations… you just find one single box. Put your zip code in it and hit ‘next’. Congratulations, you’re one step closer to getting your automobile insured!

But while there’s precious little to confuse you about Esurance’s front page, don’t be fooled - there are LOADS of options under the surface, but the way Esurance works the process is that they only ask you what they need to, while allowing you to make alterations to your policy AFTER you get your quote, to bring it down in price, or to fit in with your budget.

We found this to be an insanely clever, simple, non-confusing move. We simply gave our name, date of birth, how many cars, how many drivers, etc - about a minute of easy information entering - and we were looking at a comparison screen with four different company quotes on offer.

Now, let’s be clear here - Esurance’s estimate was NOT the cheapest deal listed. In fact, it was the second most expensive out of the four rates shown, with another company coming in at less than half of the price of Esurance, but the fact remains that every single policy has so many variables that, while this company wasn’t in the ballpark on our first test quote, it was the cheapest by far when we tried it for a second quote on another car.

What we love about Esurance is how quickly it cuts through the crap and gave us full control of our policy. By tweaking factors after the quote was given, such as bodily injury limits and additional personal injury protection, and by lowering our property damage limit and raising our collision coverage deductible, we knocked a hundred bucks off the 6-monthly cost of a policy.

When we decided we were ready to buy, that too was simple - just enter your personal details, such as driver’s license numbers etc, and then print off the proof of insurance, and that’s it!

Esurance is absolutely a good starting point whenever you need auto coverage. They may not give you the lowest quote, but they will allow you to figure out ways to reduce your rate, and they’re open and honest enough to show you what their competitors will charge, which you simply have to love.

The Product Trends rating: Esurance gets a big four stars. An absolute pleasure to work with.

To try Esurance for yourself, click the image below:

About the company: "AccountNow, headquartered in San Ramon, California, is the premier provider of financial solutions for the millions of US consumers who do not have established credit or traditional banking relationships. Our money saving offers give consumers an alternative to "traditional" checking accounts and access to the financial and payment systems, including Debit MasterCard cards, and Pay Anyone bill payment Customers can rest assured in knowing their money is safe - protected by FDIC Insurance and the MasterCard Zero Liability Policy for unauthorized use."

The big pitch: An easy approval, no paperwork, simple enrollment debit credit card with guaranteed approval.

If you’ve ever tried to set up a bank account in the USA without great credit or proper ID, you know that it’s nearly impossible. Every single bank in the land will refuse you a bank account if you don’t give them several copies of ID, and when you have your account, they’ll charge you a fortune in fees just to get to your money.

Recently, because many people don’t like their SSN being available to anyone who works for a bank, or anyone who buys customer information from the bank, or anyone who hacks customer information from the bank, a new trend has emerged - that of the easy approval, no paperwork, easy enrollment debit credit card.

How does this help you? Simple. It means that you can have a bank account that is totally secure, linked to a credit card, usable in ATM machines, has easier access, lower fees, is FDIC insured, and requires no credit check for you to be approved. The AccountNow Vantage debit Mastercard can save you hundreds of dollars in check cashing fees, bill paying expenses and paycheck direct deposit costs, because it’s designed to do what your bank just won’t.

First of all, it works exactly like a credit card, in that you can withdraw money from any of over 900,000 ATMs, or just swipe your card like any other Visa or Mastercard purchase. You can write up to 7 free ‘online checks’ to pay bills, you’re guaranteed approval, so there’s no credit check and no security deposit, and the card itself and the bank behind it is 100% insured with the FDIC, and also adheres to Mastercard’s Zero Liability plan, which ensures that should anyone use your card illegally, it won’t hurt your hip pocket.

Enrollment is simple as you can imagine. Just give your name, address, phone number, social security number, date of birth, whether or not your employer uses direct deposit for your paychecks, and what design you want your credit card to have. After you’ve done that, the system will approve you automatically, right there and then.

Your previous banking history just doesn’t matter. Your credit history? Irrelevant. Previous bankruptcies? No problem. All they want to know is that you’re real person, over the age of 18, and that you actually reside in the US.

Now, the only question left is, ‘Why is it so easy with AccountNow?’ and the answer is simple. This is a ‘debit’ credit card, which means you must deposit $100 to activate the card, and you’ll be drawing from the money that is already deposited in your account. No, it’s not as good as being given a $10,000 credit line, but if you just want an easy to use bank account with an easy to get debit card that works like a credit card, this is the plan for you.

But before you kick in for one, you should know the deal with fees. Firstly, when you send them a wire transfer to deposit money in your account, that’ll cost you $10. You can avoid this, however, by banking online or sending a check, so no problem there. Next, if you go over your limit, they’ll hit you with a $29 overdraft fee, which is nasty, but if you keep a positive balance, again that’s not an issue. The aspect of the AccountNow Vantage Debit Mastercard that gets us more than a little annoyed is that if you try to use your card and it gets declined, they’ll charge you 50c. Why? What’s the point in that? It doesn’t cost them anything to refuse your card, so why charge you for the privilege?

Aside from that minor piece of extortion, most of the other fees are reaosnable, if they even exist. Online web service is free, so too is your monthly online statement. If you want a paper version, that’s a $5 charge, and if you need to talk to their customer service people, they’ll charge you $3… and they’ll ALSO charge you $9.95 in monthly maintenance fees.

Deposits are free, signature purchases are free at stores and restaurants, but ATM purchases range between 25c and $2, and even if all you do is ask for a balance inquiry, they’ll STILL charge you for the privilege, in this case $1.

The Product Trends rating: The risk here is negligible, because you’re only using your own money, which makes interest rates irrelevant, but the downside of that is that AccountNow will burn you on little fees and charges at Every. Single. Turn. If you’re smart, you can avoid most of them, but not all, which leaves us thinking that if you can’t get a bank account elsewhere, and you’re prepared to take a few fee hits to get one, then this is the card for you. Otherwise, you might want to keep looking. Two stars.

To try AccountNow Vantage Debit Mastercard for yourself, click the image below:

About the company: "At MoneySearch.com, we are a Loan Search Engine, and we’re commited to helping you find a wide assortment of lenders and brokers. Our purpose is simple… to provide you with a simple way to find a local lender and view updated rate comparison surveys from hundreds of lenders and brokers nationwide."

The big pitch: Get quotes from multiple lenders with the lowest rates.

Yet another in a long line of money lending websites that don’t actually lend you any money, but rather send your details to companies that might, at least we have to give MoneySearch.com credit for not disguising their true situation like so many others of their ilk do.

MoneySearch says it right up front - they are not a financial lender, they are a Loan Search Engine. And to that end, they do an okay job. If you only want to use their system to ensure a handful of potential lenders contact you with their offers, by all means, go to MoneySearch.com and knock yourself out .

But, and here’s the rub… if we just wanted random lenders to call us, we could flip through a phonebook and call them directly, you know?

The best ‘loan search engines’ will take your information and give you back a stream of data on who has the best rates today, and who specializes in your area/credit situation/type of loan. They take your info and process it, giving you back a list of good stuff that you can then take the to the next level.

"Oh, it says here that Money Lenders Inc can give us a lower rate, with no money down… let’s give them a call," - that’s helpful. "Oh… they say four lenders will cal us sometime in the next five days…" - that’s not so helpful.

At least not to me. What is helpful is the literal overload of lending information that you can find on the MoneySearch.com website. They handle a lot more than home loans - they do home equity loans, debt consolidation loans, auto loans, commercial loans, student financing, insurance, first home buyers, less then perfect credit, prequalified, credit cards, construction loans, FHA, VA, no documentation, credit repair… basically anything you could ever really want in terms of borrowing money from a bank, lender, or other associated usurer.

They have mortgage calculators, info on how to decide whether you should buy or rent, refinancing assessment tools, investment calculators, lease calculators, instant credit reports… Or rather, they don’t actually have any of that… but they link to it really well.

So if you’re in the early stages of deciding whether or not you’re going to be a borrower, perhaps this is a good place to get all the information you’ll need. And then, when you’ve sucked them dry of info, maybe then you can find a website that takes you to the next level, because though MoneySearch is an honest, successful, straight-up, above board company, it just doesn’t do as much as, ultimately, we’d hoped it would.

The Product Trends rating: Plenty of information, but that’s about all. Three stars.

To try MoneySearch.com for yourself, click the image below:

About the company: No matter whether you’re looking for video games, toys, games, standees, soundtracks, home furnishings, gift certificates, convention items, DVDs, collectibles, clothing, books, stationery, artwork or posters, if it has something to do with Star Wars, you’ll find it sold at the officially mandated, Lucasfilm-owned Star Wars Shop.

The big pitch: Discounted items for sale everyday, including exclusives that you won’t find anywhere else.

I have to admit, I hated, hated, hated the last three Star Wars movies. I know certain people love them and get all up ins, but to me, they were some of the worst big budget filmmaking in the last thirty years, like a trio of Waterworlds all lined up in a row. But hey, what do I know? I have a life that doesn’t involve Yoda-talk, so maybe I’m just missing out.

For those that aren’t missing out and worship the ground that George Lucas walks on, there’s the Star Wars Shop, the official Lucasfilm merchandise outlet that sells everything from ‘holiday edition Darth Vader statues’ to something called a ‘Lando in Skiff Guard Disguise Mini-Bust’.

I have to say, I wouldn’t know a ‘Covert Ops Clone Trooper Figure’ from a ‘Star Wars Porcelain Character Ornament Set’, but one thing I can tell you is that the items on sale at the Star Wars Shop are a lot cheaper than you would expect, especially seeing as much of it is limited edition collectible gear. I don’t know that I’d personally spend $279.99 on an ‘Attackus Wicket Statue’ or $399.99 on a 15 inch ‘Attackus Tusken Raider Statue’, but presumably someone out there will be saving every last penny of their summer babysitting money to do just that, in the expectation that one day it’ll be worth, like, $405 or something. So good luck to ‘em.

But you don’t have to be the geekiest geek of all geekdom to shop at the Star Wars Shop. Even a Star Wars hater like me can geek out a little at the General Greivous Bobbleheads (for just $16.99!), or the Framed Episode IV Film Cells (a snap at $69.99). And yeah, okay, I’ll admit that I wigged out a little at the Dark Side basketball jersey, though there’s no way I’d meet the hundred-dollar price tag for it.

All in all, what could have been a giant nerd rip-off is actually a collection of reasonably priced merchandise (for the most part) that will find a warm place in the hearts of those who dig it. We abide.

The Product Trends rating: It’s not our scene, but credit where it’s due, some of this is good stuff, especially to those who have The Empire Strikes Back memorized down to the last line, or have hung an Attack of the Clones poster over their john. If you go to sleep at night thinking about scenes from Return of the Jedi, then this is the store for you. 3.5 stars.

To try the Star Wars Shop for yourself, click the image below:

About the company: "Musicmatch’s combination of personalized music software and services lets music fans manage their music and listening environment in one place. With Musicmatch Jukebox and music services, consumers can buy, record, burn, download, discover, enjoy and organize an entire music collection. At the same time, Musicmatch delivers exceptional personalization through technology not available elsewhere. The patent-pending Musicmatch personalization system learns from millions of community members to deliver tailored music, artist recommendations and valuable services unique to a listener’s own tastes."

The big pitch: The internet’s best (and free!) music jukebox software. Play and organize your music collection, create custom playlists, burn and rip your own music CDs, and transfer music to your MP3 player - at no cost!

When people talk about music software, they inevitably either mean Windows Media Player, or Apple’s iTunes. But those people are missing one very big, very good, very free addition to the jukebox software field - Yahoo’s incredible MusicMatch Jukebox 10.

Never heard of it? That’s kind of the problem - MusicMatch leaves iTunes and Windows Media for dead in just about every category, from the free music playing software, to the ‘pay per download’ music store that sits behind it. But the real beauty of Yahoo’s MusicMatch store is that, even without paying a cent, you can get a whole lot of value out of it, including an hour per day of MusicMatch’s Artist Match radio, which is AWESOME.

Here’s how it works. When you start up MusicMatch Jukebox 10, you click on the ‘radio’ tab, which gives you a whole host of free radio stations that you can listen to to your heart’s content without spending a cent. These range from hip-hop to comedy to world music to techno, but the real gem in the rough is the Artist Match option.

First, type in the name of your favorite band. Let’s say you’re digging Dashboard Confessional right now (I know we are), so you type them in. What you get next is a page of their music that you can, if you want, sample for free, or download. But hit the ‘artist match’ button and you get one hour of random music from other bands that MusicMatch says are very close to Dashboard Confessional’s style. In this case, we get music from The Shins, Something Corporate, Jimmy Eat World, The Ataris, Brand New, Matchbook Romance, Death Cab for Cutie, The Used, Senses Fail, Incubus, Boxcar Racer, John Mayer and the always amazing Bright Eyes, among others.

Now in case you don’t understand the gravity of this, remember all those times you got bored of commercial radio playing the same bands over and over? Haven’t you ever wanted a way to find new bands that are similar in style to stuff you already like? Well here it is.

MusicMatch’s Artist Match radio, even if you decide not to spend a cent on monthly subscriptions and pay-per-download tracks, gives you a litany of bands you’ve never heard of, but which you will absolutely like enough to pursue in the future. And if you REALLY like what you hear, you can purchase the track for download with a single click of the mouse.

And even if you don’t, an hour per day of music focused on your own likes and dislikes is an incredible deal - especially for free.

We LOVE this software, and the service behind it is a heck of a deal too, at just $19.95 for the premium service, but because we’re cheapskates we use ArtistMatch to find new bands, and then we download the hell out of them, using MusicMatch to play the downloads later. It’s a great deal, and MusicMatch also allows us to burn CDs, rip tracks, send music to an MP3 player, burn MP3’s, and they even offer personalized tech support.

Yahoo may be a huge company devoted to eating all their competitors and spitting out the bones, but in the case of MusicMatch, they simply have the greatest piece of jukebox software available. And it’s free!

The Product Trends rating: Absolutely five stars. This is a piece of software that leaves iTunes and Real Player in the dust, with a music store behind it that competes very well with anyone else out there. MusicMatch gets our strongest recommendation. And it’s free - try it now!

To try MusicMatch for yourself, click the image below:

About the company: At America’s Lending Partners you submit your home loan request just once. We then match you with up to four of our lending partners who range from national to local lenders. Our lending partners contact you directly so you can compare offers, compare options and decide which loan is best for you.

The big pitch: Complete one form and up to four lenders will contact you with offers. Over $51b in home loans matches since 1999.

Founded by executives of FirstPlus Financial and The Money Store, America’s Lending Partners is not an actual lending institution. They are, rather, a website that gathers your information if you’re looking for a home loan, refinancing, home improvement funds, second mortgage, home equity loan, or debt consolidation package, and passes it on to a series of other lenders. It’s then up to those lenders to actually contact you with an offer, if they deem you worthy.

For the sake of our testing purposes, we put ourselves forth as looking for a new home loan for a condominium in New Jersey, with fair but not great credit, for an amount of $200,000, with no money down. We went through the process, which took all of about 45 seconds, but at the end we received no offers at all, at least not on the thank you screen (they do say that lenders will contact us later, but still)…

All of which is a little annoying. I mean, if you’re looking for a good deal, you’re likely to be shopping around, and if other websites are giving you approximations of the rate you’re likely to get and America’s Lending Partners isn’t, then chances are a lot of people who might be have otherwise been helped by them, are going elsewhere in the meantime.

In our research, however, is does seem that America’s Lending Partners is very helpful in getting zero money down home loans at a reasonable interest rate, as well as finding financing for borrowers who don’t have a great credit rating, and who don’t want to pay fees to get their loan application looked at. While companies like E-Loan and ING seem to get a great rate for people who have great credit, America’s Lending Partners looks to be the one to go to if you’re getting the runaround elsewhere.

Expect interest rates around 5.2% per annum (give or take a half a percent), zero fees, and an easy process to start with, and as always, please, please, please look over your loan agreement before taking on any sort of debt whatsoever. Without taking on a ‘test mortgage’, the only qualities of a lender than we can assess at this site are the opinions of others, what their rates are, and how simple their process is.

America’s Lending Partners is often advertised on CNN, Court TV, Fox News, The History Channel, The Weather Channel, MSNBC, ESPN, USA Network, FX, Spike TV, TV Land, Food Network, TNT, HGTV, Lifetime, and in several national glossy magazines such as Food and Wine, Country Home, This Old House, House and Garden, and House Beautiful - but don’t take that as a sign of honesty and authority - if they’re advertising heavily, the money to do so has to come from somewhere… somewhere like you. Don’t be swayed by marketing - the best possible deal for you is just as likely to come from a small company in Dubuque as it is from a huge multinational. Do your research, haggle like crazy, and beware the fine print.

The Product Trends rating: From what we can see, there’s definitely a need for America’s Lending Partners out there, and they seem to be making waves in the business. We’d like to see a few things improved, but if you need low or no-deposit financing, this should be your first step. Three stars.

To try America’s Lending Partners for yourself, click the image below:

About the company: "Half.com is an innovative online marketplace that brings together buyers and sellers. Whether you are looking for the hottest new products or something hard-to-find, you can find it at drastically reduced prices on Half.com. There are millions of products to choose from in Books, Music, Movies, Video Games, and Game Systems."

The big pitch: Save $5 on your first purchase, and get $5 more if you refer a friend!

If you’ve ever used eBay to find second hand goods that you value more than the guy that currently owns them, you’re going to love eBay’s spin-off website, Half.com. In all honesty, we love, love, love this website and cannot say enough good things about it.

Half allows you to look for every book, video game, CD, DVD, video tape, audio book, game system, and textbook you’ve ever wanted, and finds a list of users who are prepared to sell you that item for as much as 90% off the regular list price.

For example, we searched for Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and found it available in paperback, brand new, for $8.35, or $7.75 in ‘like new’ condition. On the other hand, if ‘good’ condition is acceptable to you, you could get it even cheaper, for $7.00 flat (the description from the seller says it has a little shelf wear around the edges). Considering the retail list price is $12.95, that’s a $5.95 discount from what you’d normally spend - and with the $5 new user discount, you could get that book for just two bucks!

Not good enough? How about The Daily Show’s America: The Book, by Jon Stewart, available like new for just $8.08, a 67% discount from the regular $24.95 list price. Or maybe you’d be interested in a VHS copy of Donnie Darko, for just $2.29? Or the DVD version for $6.99?

If you like the music, you could get a mint copy of 50 Cent’s Get Rich or Die Tryin’ for $3.73, or if you like the older stuff, how about The Eagles’ Hotel California for just $1.49 - a 91% discount on the list price!

Selling your old goods on Half is easy too. Just set up an account, enter the details of your books, CDs, videos, games, etc in their system, and grade it based on the quality of the item - like new, very good, good, or acceptable - then set your price. If someone wants your item, you’ll get the cash and mail it out to them ASAP, and everyone is happy.

Looking for a good cheap source of school textbooks? Half can help you there as well, with many reference books that we looked at coming in at around half price.

In the end, the beauty of Half.com is that you can finally not only afford all the books and movies and games you ever wanted to buy, but when you’re done with them you can resell them and perhaps even make a profit doing so!

The Product Trends rating: There’s no question, this is a top quality organization, which does everything it promises, making both buying and selling very, very easy. Five stars.

To try Half.com for yourself (and get a $5 discount while doing so!), click the image below:

About the company: "With nearly three million Internet domains, Dotster, Inc. is one of the largest ICANN-accredited domain name registrars in the world. Launched in 2000, Dotster was among the first to offer long-term registrations and discounted pricing. Customers now turn to Dotster for its ability to deliver creative, marketable, and hard-to-find domain names through its proprietary NameSpin and Namewinner services. Dotster offers superior online account management tools and dedicated support from its customer care team in Washington state. The company’s services include web hosting, DNS management, website development and marketing services, and partner programs."

The big pitch: Transfer your domain to Dotster for $8.95 and get one year of free web hosting. Hosting packages start at $8.95 per month, whois privacy for $2.99 per year.

Dotster has grown pretty damn fast over the last few years, and at first glance it’s hard to see why. They charge a little more per month than other web hosting outfits, they charge for domain transfers, which other companies do for free, they charge you a few bucks to keep your whois details private, again something that others do for free (and Dotster did for free not long ago), and their domain registrations, at $14.95 per year, pale in comparison to the $3 and $2 registrations you can get from hosting chop shops like GoDaddy.

So why are people using Dotster when they’re not scraping the bottom of the barrel on price?

Well, for starters, the company does what it promises. The basic web hosting account brings you 3GB of bandwidth, 100MB of storage, up to 50 email accounts and nifty extras like personal photo albums and web blogs, spam filtering and virus protection. They also offer Linux hosting, which people who are sick of Microsoft’s continual security issues and bug problems seem to think is a big deal.

Dotster domain registrations include free URL forwarding, free domain parking, free SpamShield, free TransferLock, and free ownership transfers, additionally, you can have 25MB of MySQL database space, chat server software, shopping cart scripts, content management scripts, online calendars, blah blah blah.

But, see, here’s the thing… the first rule of picking a web host is to know as much as you can about that webhost up front. Who are they? Where do they come from? What’s their business model? Will I spend money on ten years of domain registration, only to find the company goes bankrupt next June? Will they charge my credit card for all sorts of things I didn’t ask for?

I’m not saying any of that applies to Dotster, but without some detailed company info on their website (and there is none that I could find), it’s hard to tell people to send their money there. What’s the size of Dotster’s pipe? What’s their uptime? Sorry folks, but I have no idea, because they don’t make the info clear.

Clearly lots of people aren’t too concerned about that, since Dotster looks after the hosting of 3 million different accounts, but AOL has millions of users too and you wouldn’t find me recommending them for an ISP.

So where do we go from here? Should you move your website away from GoDaddy to Dotster or not? Well, there are things that work in Dotster’s favor. From consumer reports, we’ve noticed that although the company doesn’t make a phone number available to customers, they do respond to customer service issues in a helpful way (just via email, so hope you’re not in a hurry). Their control panel is a breeze to use, something that GoDaddy could learn some things about, and they deliver what they say they will, unlike the much-maligned Verio web hosting company.

One potential snafu with Dotster is that, if you want to take your website away from them and put it elsewhere, they’ll expect to be paid $25 for the privilege. Though they’re not the only ones that do this kind of thing, it is, to our way of thinking, utter and outright extortion.

So should you use Dotster? Well, we’d lean towards not, at least not right now. Sure, you should move your site away from GoDaddy pronto, but we’re not entirely sure that Dotster is the way to go, unless of course you’re okay with long, long term deals that might be a little bit more expensive than the other guys, but are easy to use and won’t break your website in the meantime.

If you want to leave your website in one place for a few years, definitely go with Dotster. But it you’re one of the many that want the option to leave if things take a negative turn, we’d suggest you keep looking.

The Product Trends rating: A good, solid option, but the lack of company info, lack of support phone number, and sneaky fees that you’re hit with once you’re stuck with them is a definite red light. Be assured, those negatives are minor issues when it comes to your web hosting/domain registration experience, but they’re worth noting. The Product Trends Magazine rating on Dotster is three stars.

To try Dotster for yourself, click the image below:

About the company: Audible.com, recently named the best consumer Web service by CNet.com, features daily audio editions of The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, as well as Forbes, Harvard Business Review, Scientific American, and Fast Company. The site offers a collection of audiobook best sellers and classics by authors such as Tom Clancy, Stephen King, John Grisham, Janet Evanovich, James Patterson, the Dalai Lama, David McCullough, Stephen Hawking, William Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, and Jane Austen. There are also speeches, lectures, and on-demand radio programs including Marketplace, All Things Considered, Car Talk, Fresh Air, and This American Life, and all of the programs are available for playback, burning to audio CD, and on-the-go listening using numerous AudibleReady portable digital audio players.

The big pitch: Join Audible.com today and get a free Apple iPod Shuffle, or 2 free audio programs.

If you’re one of the millions of people in North America who spend hours each day stuck in traffic, cursing at the lack of intelligence on drive-time radio, then you may well jump for joy when you hear about this service - downloadable audio books, newspapers, radio progams and speeches, which you can burn to CD and play in your car on your way to work - for less than the cost of the original book itself!

Audible.com just plain rules. You choose the audio book or other program that you want to download, pay a fee so the author isn’t stiffed, then the file comes directly to you, protected from piracy, but also easily adaptable to whatever format you prefer to listen to.

Want to play Bill Maher’s New Rules on your home computer? Done. Prefer to burn a copy of Freakanomics to CD for listening to on the way to work each morning? No problem. Or perhaps you’d like to port the DaVinci Code audio file to your iPod and listen to it while jogging? Piece of cake!

Regular readers of the New York Times will be thrilled that they can download an audio version instead of having to find time to read the thing cover to cover, or maybe you’d prefer the Wall Street Journal? How about some NPR programming? Or maybe you want to hear George Bush’s commencement speech at the US Naval Academy (just for a laugh, of course)…

It’s all there - The Alchemist, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Bill Clinton’s My Life, Dude Where’s My Country?, Stephen King, John Irving, Janet Evanovich, Thomas Friedman, even original works from comedians like Robin Williams and Greg Proops, or adult material like Penthouse: Between the Sheets.

So how good is this company exactly? Let me put it to you this way. While I’m writing this, I’m listening to an audio version of The Daily Show’s ‘America: The Book’, as narrated by Jon Stewart, and it cost me LESS than the hardcover version that has sat on my bookshelf unread for the last six months.

Audible’s BasicListener™ program allows you to choose one audiobook and one audio magazine, newspaper, or radio program per month for just $14.95. The PremiumListener™ program members can choose any two digital audiobooks each month for just $21.95, which is an incredible saving, and is incidentally the program we use ourselves.

You can buy the audio books without joining Audible’s membership program if you like, but if you’re a member, the programs cost you less, and if you commit yourself to a six-month membership, they’ll send you an Apple iPod Shuffle (or at least that was the offer at the time of writing), so really you’ve got nothing to lose.

The Product Trends rating: We love this service - repeat: WE LOVE THIS SERVICE. Five stars all the way. Join now, tell your friends, and you’ll never regret it as long as you spend ten minutes a day in traffic.

To try Audible.com for yourself, click the image below:

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About the company: Jamster! plans offer you credits for numerous content downloads at a great value, for just $5.99 per month. Each plan provides credits for a specific number of ringtones, wallpapers, screensavers, logos, software and/or games, etc.

The big pitch: Every Jamster plan, from the Basic Plan to the Platinum Plan, costs just $5.99 per month.

People in Europe know Jamster really well, mostly because the cellphone culture out there is far more advanced and entrenched than it is in the US, and even more so because the Jamster ‘Crazy Frog‘ has been heard millions of times on TV, radio, and on that annoying cellphone sitting next to you on the bus every morning.

What Jamster does is simple - they provide content for mobile phones. And by content, we mean a whole lot more than just an annoying frog. We mean screensavers, themes, wallpapers, ringtones, games, videotones, picture messages, and news on just about everything, from sports to celebrity gossip.

You want Jenna Jameson to tell you whenever you have a phone call? Jamster can make it happen. You want The Knights Who Say ‘Ni’ to announce you have a message waiting? Jamster will allow you to exhibit your immense inner geekdom by doing so.

Of course, for many of us, this is all quite baffling. I mean, we know that the kids just gotta have the latest 50 Cent or Kanye West track on their cellphone and all, so they can be like EVERY. OTHER. TEENAGER IN THE WORLD. But it all just makes us think… why? How does it ‘express your individuality’ to have the same ringtone as everyone else in your class? And as if to prove the futility of it all, in a fit of ridiculous irony, the most popular comedy download ringtone on Jamster is… you guessed it, an old-fashioned telephone ring.

Regardless, if the kids want Jamster, the kids can afford Jamster, with every single plan in the system costing just $5.99 per month. When it comes right down to it, that’s pretty freakin’ cheap, and credit where it’s due, we were surprised at how expansive the content bank at Jamster actually is. Voice ringtones include recordings by Donald Trump, Jiminy Glick, Larry the Cable Guy, Jeff Foxworthy, Jenna Jameson, Ice T, Green Day, or if you don’t like voices on your ringtone you can choose from music from any genre you like, from classical to hip hop, reggae to latin music.

Have Mariah Carey in your pocket. Have Bow Wow announce that your mother is calling you. Hear Jessica Simpson trying to sing whenever someone wants you to pick up, or go a little retro and slap some Depeche Mode tunes on your Nokia, Motorola, Samsung or Sanyo phone. Jamster, as annoying as that frog can be, will help you find what you need.

The Product Trends rating: It’s not expensive, and it does what it promises, and does that well, so as much as we think it’s all a bit of a fad, Jamster is not a bad deal if you’re into your cellphone. 3.5 stars.

To try Jamster for yourself, click the image below: