In an era where just about every possible cool name for a company or product is taken, startups and entrepreneurs find themselves dipping into the strange, the wacky and the just plain weird. I have no idea what the heck a VelvetPuffin is supposed to be--other than perhaps an extremely tacky piece of wall art--but the service itself is as cool as the name it might have had, had it debuted before the nomenclature land rush began in earnest. Still, I digress.

The VelvetPuffin service is one of an increasing number of concepts that I've seen over the past 12 months that makes me say, "Wow. I don't know whether this company is going to succeed, but it just works the way things should." So, what is it? It's an instant messaging-based social network for mobile phones, coupled with a socially active desktop, according to R. Chandrasekar, co founder of Singapore-based Radixs, the company behind the service. In plain English--and this is the brilliant simplicity that impressed us--the interface on both the phone (Java 2.0 phones with GPRS or 3G connections only) and the desktop (just Windows for now; the Mac client is forthcoming,) look just like a typical IM client: a vertical rectangle. This makes it an optimal interface for instant messaging. But it also ends up working well on the phone for managing your photos, blogs, video and polls (an easy way for you and your VelvetPuffin-equipped peers to vote on which restaurant to eat at or which movie to go see.)