Spurred on by a good head start from Strange New Products (thanks Blogebrity and Gizmodo) we've relaunched Cool Website Ideas.

CWS was originally launched in July 2004, but not as a blog. It was a static-HTML site that featured websites based on novel ideas, but focused more on their business aspects. It was meant to be a serious review of how such websites were monetized.

The problem was that it took quite a bit of time reviewing each site just to write up a good analysis. Having to spend this much time meant taking time away from other tasks, thus we had to set it aside until we could come up with a different approach.

Enter the gadget blogs.

I guess it's no secret that folks have always been fascinated with new products. The fact that there seems to be an endless supply of gadget blogs proves this. Part of the fascination with marveling over the latest gear has something to do with seeking entertainment. Gizmodo seems to know this quite well by its often humorous write ups. But there's an artistic side to this fascination as well, with products that seem to solve tough problems through simple designs. I think this is another reason why people keep coming back to their favorite gadget blog, to reaffirm their appreciation for the simple-and-ingenious.

And that's where we come back to CWS. We've relaunched it to take advantage of this particular interest, as opposed to dry reviews of content and monetization. It's like a gadget blog that writes about websites. While we expect web publishers to be the core audience, we'd also like to attract folks who read gadget blogs.