Contort, Flexible USB Hub Manager, Hits Quirky’s Online Store

New York, NY, October 27, 2010 — Today marks the official release of Contort — a community-developed USB hub that manages your drives and cables while protecting them.

Your standard USB thumb drive is just one accidental bump away from sending your valuable files into oblivion. Don’t fear; the Quirky Contort is here. Contort is a four-port USB hub and cord manager, with a 360-degree flexible rubber neck to protect all your USB devices from accidental damage. Cooler still, Contort has a built-in cord management wrap with four anchors to corral your cables. This super lightweight hub measures 34 mm x 142 mm and transports easily — just wrap up your cables and go.

Following the success of Pivot Power, Cordies and the PowerCurl, Contort is the latest addition to Quirky’s cord management line.

Contort is the 59th product designed and developed by the Quirky community since Quirky’s launch on June 2, 2009. Quirky gives everyone the chance to get product ideas out of their heads and onto shelves. Each week, Quirky’s community collaborates to select and produce one new product idea. This week ends the development phase of Contort, and it is now available for pre-sale in Quirky’s online store for $29.99 (MSRP: $34.99).

Quirky engages participants to collaborate in every aspect of product creation — from ideation, design, naming, manufacturing, marketing, right on through to sales. Anyone can participate on Quirky.com either by submitting their own product idea for $10, or by voting, rating, and influencing other people’s product ideas. Cooler still, 30¢ of every dollar generated from the sale of a Quirky product goes back to these influencers.

The final product becomes available for pre-sale in the Quirky online store (quirky.com/products). Once the product hits its pre-sale threshold, credit cards are charged, and the product goes into production and delivery. At this point, 30¢ of every dollar made from the direct sale of these products goes back to the community. “Community” in this case covers both the ideator as well as all people who voted, commented, and rated the project idea along the way.