What’s funny is that Crowley, who was executive producer of Calacanis’ Launch Conference this week, did actually launch a product there, but it was not Skweal. Crowley demoed LinkPops, which overlays a user’s friends’ tweets about articles onto news sites. But he said afterwards that LinkPops was an idea he and a buddy put together on a whim in the week before the show.

Skweal, on the other hand, is something Crowley has been working on since last year. He said he will soon leave his full-time role as director of corporate development and strategy at Calacanis’ Mahalo to pursue Skweal.

Explaining his odd reluctance to show off Skweal to the home crowd, Crowley said he thought the Launch audience was more interested in consumer products, while Skweal is targeted at retailers.

What Crowley wants to do with Skweal is help retailers “keep negative feedback offline.” The site differs from the many user-generated feedback forums that give users the platform to publicly cast judgment and read each others’ posts–for instance the recently launched Tello, which invites users to review service providers, or Glassdoor, which has employees grade their workplace environments.

Skweal is much more like submitting a paper slip to a locked comment box. And I can see the appeal for us non-confrontational types who would feel more comfortable keeping gripes out of a public forum. But the problem for Skweal is how to attract and connect users and retailers.

Crowley’s solution is this: participating retailers tell customers via a sign or sticker to go to the Skweal Web site to leave feedback. Users offer a rating and comment along with their email address. Skweal disguises that email address and alerts the retailer to log onto a CRM dashboard to review the feedback and respond.

Skweal retailers can choose to get SMS alerts for instant feedback, and they can also see reviews laid out in charts that highlight problem locations and time slots.

If a retailer isn’t registered with Skweal (and of course, the majority currently aren’t), customers can still leave feedback. The company then uses “dark arts,” as Crowley described them, to track down contact information for the retailer, whether email, SMS or Twitter. Crowley deadpanned, “If they don’t respond, then we forward it to a competitor.”

Skweal is free for businesses and users, but retailers with more than one location will have to pay $1 per day per location.

Facebook-branded Vitaminwater

Those smug smarties from Palo Alto, Calif. (disclosure: my husband works there part-time, so I can say that with some bit of certainty) say they love the openness and cooperativeness of internal Facebook culture, according to Glassdoor (as well as the free food and commuter shuttles).

This is the first time Facebook has made the Glassdoor list. In second place is Southwest Airlines–which was last year’s winner–followed by Bain & Company, General Mills and Edelman, respectively.

As for other tech companies, SAS Institute placed No. 7, Overstock.com was No. 9 and CareerBuilder No. 11. Apple was No. 20 and Google No. 30.

Meanwhile, in more surprising news, Glassdoor reports that Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz is actually more popular now than founder Jerry Yang when he was in the top spot. Bartz has an employee approval rating of 56 percent, compared to 34 percent for Yang when he left.

Other comparisons: HP CEO Léo Apotheker has 62 percent approval, compared to Mark Hurd’s 34 percent when he left, and AOL CEO Tim Armstrong has 71 percent approval, compared to Randy Falco’s 13 percent approval when he left.

The most popular tech CEO is Apple’s Steve Jobs, with a 97 percent approval rating. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Eric Schmidt are both at 96 percent.

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.