MoMB

The Museum of Modern Betas
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Betas of the Year 2005 - Where are they now?

the next web took a look at Dion Hinchcliffe’s Best Web 2.0 Software of 2005 list and asked asked the brilliant question where are they now…?.

Most of them (22) are still alive – del.icio.us is alive and well, blinklist is alive but dying – and six of them are dead.

I’m always interested in benchmarking the performance of beta sites so I too took a look at the Betas of the Year list I’ve compiled at the end of 2005.

And guess what, all of them are still around and well, most of them actually best in class in their field.

Nr. 1: Writely

Writely

Status: alive and well – purchased by Google in 2006, became the basic building block of Google Docs.

Nr. 2: flickr

flickr

Status: alive and well – was acquired by Yahoo.

Nr. 3: Netvibes

Netvibes

Status: alive and well

Runners-Up: (alphabetical)

Amazon Mechanical Turk Amazon Mechanical Turk

Status: alive

Dabble DB Dabble DB

Status: alive

del.icio.us del.icio.us

Status: alive and well – also puchased by Yahoo.

Etsy Etsy

Status: alive and well

Google Base Google Base

Status: alive

Google Book Search Google Book Search

Status: alive

Measure Map Measure Map

Status: alive – also acquired by Google, was integrated in Google Analytics as part of the redesign.

Num Sum Num Sum

Status: still around.

Odeo Odeo

Status: alive – didn’t quite match the expectations, but let’s not forget that Twitter is a spin-off.

Remember the Milk Remember the Milk

Status: alive – small but dedicated group of users.

☍ 25.10.2008