Cheat Sheets (it's a help thing)

In Google's RSS reader, there are shortcuts. It's a quintessential AJAX application, like most humans really don't understand: a webpage UI for a full application. (Don't let the simplicity of the page fool you, there's a lot you can do here.)
Quick keys, like Windows users (may) love, aren't usually options in a browser, but they are in the Google Reader - and more than you'd expect.
Enter the paper taped to the wall... a table of quick key reminders.
But they've gone one step farther: the "?" is a quick key for a shadow-box cheat sheet. Shadow boxes are ~50% transparent so you don't forget what you were doing, but show you want you need. In this case, the font is large and there's a scroll bar.
This is what every web site should have - quick keys, a cheat sheet, and a universal "?" to show it in any context.
To be clear, this would do three things:

1. Provides help
2. Provides at-a-glance awareness of possibly useful advanced features (ferrying newbies to guruhood unsuspectingly)
3. Perhaps most interesting... forces product managers and designers to consider what a jet-pack, fully-empowered experience on their site might actually mean...

All worthwhile as a norm.

The Talkies (video-enhanced sites)

I've been watching as more and more sites use video to introduce, explain, or generally teach users the value they offer. I don't mean tutorials per se (like Mog's tours), but optional homepage embellishments, etc, that tastefully tell the story. (As opposed to this.)
I just came across perhaps my new favorite example of the concept: Google positioning this video on a standard map page. They linked to it from a post on "getting around in your neighborhood." I'm guessing a lot of Google map users are still unaware of the "re-routing (drag route)" or "directions by walking" features.
In the last 18 months I've found myself pitching the power of on-site videos like these. But it wasn't until now I see the comparison to when film gained sound. I think the level of engagement we users experience takes a significant step forward.

Engaging Marketing Email Award (i.e., hard to delete)

I was clearing out my old Yahoo inbox, marveling at the things I subscribed to 3 years ago. After a while I realized I had been reading this newsletter from Powell's Books of Portland, OR. Stepping back, scrolling up and down, you have to marvel at how rich, interesting, and beautiful they've made it. Really nice work. The email looks exactly like the web page, even in my Yahoo browser.
And such a quirky, fun, piece at the very end about the store cat.