I found a link to Riffs at Jon Hick’s blog. I don’t know much about their service, but I really like how logo gives you a direct clue to where you’ll go when you hover over it. It’s little things like this that make good interfaces great.

On the other hand I’m not fond of alpha or beta signs on services that are not finished yet. It’s been my experience that most users, especially more inexperienced ones, have no idea what that was supposed to mean.

That’s why we went with “v pripravi” stamp on our site , which is a short slovene description that we’re still preparing this yet unfinished site. It’s been very well received even though stamp doesn’t look real and doesn’t fit the rest of design all that well either. I believe the importance of language used can’t be overstated and jargon that you don’t share with your users must simply be completely avoided.

By the way, for those who’ve seen Marela, the reason why there’s a mismatch between the stamp (together with the first page) and otherwise great design is that former was done by me and later by immensely talented guys at clear:left . If you ever need a dedicated and passionate bunch of web developers who’ll go beyond their duty for a very reasonable fee, you really should give them a call.