The Split Stick USB drive is the sixth product to be developed by Quirky, the online community where users get to submit ideas for products and each week Quirky gets together to select one idea for development.

Here’s how Quirky works.

Quirky encourages 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 $99, 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.

Every week users post ideas on quirky to be rated by the quirky community. The community surveys the submissions during the 7-day evaluation period and selects one product to move forward to product development. quirky’s community then begins weighing in on everything from naming to logo selection to packaging through to prototype.

The final product becomes available for pre-sale at 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 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.

The Split Stick is a 4 gig USB drive that’s split right down the middle.

It’s made from an anodized aluminum body and encased in a protective rubber membrane. The Split Stick comes in a range of colors: orange, blue, pink, red, black, violet, grey, or green.

There is plastic button in the middle which allows one to easily navigate between the two different sides of the drive by retracting or releasing the drive to either side.

The possibilities for configuration by the user seem endless.  You can keep work files on one side and personal on the other.  Secret files on one, public on the other etc.

The Split Stick is available for pre-order for $19.99 from the Quirky web site. Production begins as soon as the product’s minimum is met.