what do you think of this product?

I'd say it's way too aggressive.
They might get read, but if you consider branding too, it will affect your name BAD.

I would have been furious, unsubscribed immediately, and run a round with spybot++ to get rid of it.

And how the h*** are they supposed to do this anyways? It will probably require the user to install something, which must suck for conversions, as well as they will uninstall it pretty quick anyways.

As for me, I find it pretty annoying to see 20 new emails in my inbox, just to see that 10 of them are from "Guru's", spamming JV products all over. Even if I just signed up to their list, they want me to "get this for only 1$" for being their trusted subscriber.
Or just "give me something for free" that requires me to sign up to another similar list.

If I got those straight to my desktop, I would seriously go crazy and crush my laptop. (Which is a really bad idea)

Why can't people just do like Shaun O'Rielly and send out quality information all the time?

I can't tell from the 2 posts what product is being referred to. However.... while the direct to desktop to replace email idea is good conceptually, it has been around for awhile and failed.

Some may recall the late Cory Rudl was one of the first to come out with this years ago. Maybe his company still offers it.

My experience with Rudl's product was that nothing was so important or necessary to have a pop-up on my computer screen whenever he had a message - and certainly not important enough to justify a constant use of computer resources and taking space on the Windows icon bar.

This sort of thing is great for internal use, and many companies already have this feature - where the boss can pop you a message to go visit their office. Otherwise, my experience is that the intrusiveness is too much.