MoMB.search
Minor update: I’ve added a custom search engine which searches within many cool and/or useful blogs (list below).
abstract dynamics
ajaxian
al3x
allthingsd
alarm:clock euro
alltechconsidered
altsearchengines
ambermac
arcticstartup
arstechnica
avc
bbc technology
bits
blog before you think
blogoscoped
bokardo
bubblegeneration
cdixon
centernetworks
cleverclogs
demogirl
dion hinchcliffe
edge economy
echovar
epicenter
evhead
exciting commerce
factoryjoe
feld
foundread
gigaom
go2web20
goingsocialnow
guardian media
guardian pda
guardian technology
guardian technology blog
hackr
horsepigcow
infectious greed
joho
joshua schachter
juxtaviews
kevin marks
kidmercuryblog
killerstartups
konterfai
labnol
lalawag
langreiter
librarystuff
lifehacker
lifestream blog
like it matters
longtail
louisgray
makeuseof
marhall kirkpatrick
mashable
masternewmedia
mediashift
mediatope II
micropersuasion
momb
monkeybites
notsorelevant
paidcontent
parislemon
paulbuchheit
paulgraham
plansphere
plasticbag
postbubble
profy
programmableweb
qwerky
radar
readwriteweb
rev2
ross
ruminate
scobleizer
scripting
seth’s blog
shirky
shoutblog
signal vs. noise
siliconflorist
smarterware
solutionwatch
somewhat frank
startupsquad
steverubel
stoweboyd
supr.c.ilio.us
susan mernit
the next web
thewavingcat
techcrunch
techcrunch eu
techcrunch it
techdirt
textually
thetechnium
tomatic
trendwatching
under the radar
vacuum
valleywag
webby’s world
webmonkey
webware
zengestrom
MoMB 5 | 9000 Betas
The MoMB turned five today and coincidentally also just crossed the 9000 betas mark (the 9000th app listed is the super sharp DropGallery.)
A few fun charts:
As most of you know we focus on plain vanilla public betas (78.6%). But we also collect sites in alpha (4.7%), sites which have not publicly launched yet (private alphas, private betas, sites in stealth mode, …) and require some sort of invitation to get in (14.3%), or sites which come in some other beta-ish (gamma, zeta, feta, labs, …) flavor (2.4%).
Google has launched only 2.3% of all betas.
We’ve seen quite a bunch of Twitter Apps lately, unfortunately only 18% of them have been released in beta.
Startup launches since 2004. The peak was in August 2007 with 487 new launches, overall I’m tracking about 22,000 sites.
It has been another interesting year, tons of apps I can’t imagine living without now – if you’ve been hanging in here for a while I hope you’ve been discovering some cool sites too. A big thanks to all of you and to all the wonderful startups.
Btw: you can subscribe to the MoMB here or follow me on twitter here or on Google Buzz here or on FriendFeed here and new additions to the MoMB are retweeted here
(see also MoMB 4 | 7777 Betas, 5555 Betas, MoMB 2 | 4000 Betas, 2001: A Beta Odyssey and 1000 Betas)
Search, Slides, Comments
Minor update:
I’ve added a slideshow mode [gone] which lets you conveniently browse the most recent additions using the arrow keys or the keyboard shortcuts j/k.
The slideshow makes use of new features of HTML5. If your browser does not support it yet, check out the section recently instead.
I’ve also revamped the MoMB Custom Search – a search engine based on Google CSE which searches within 200+ hand-picked technology blogs and a couple of news sites.
If you want to get more infos on a featured tool just click on the 
custom search logo beneath each article.
Last not least I’ve added buttons for sharing on Twitter, Google Buzz, and Delicious and comments via Disqus. They will be displayed when you click on the tiny 
transmission icon.
Beta Quotient TheNextWeb 2010
Good news (from a betalogical point of view): more than 53% (16 of 30) of the startups which presented themselves at the Startup Rally of the The Next Web Conference are released in beta *:
22tracks
apprupt *
brainient
buildor *
dazzboard *
distimo
doubledutch
ecwid *
english-attack *
fashiolista *
feest.je * (stealth)
flowdock *
fits.me *
helloinbox * (coming soon)
inbox2 *
mailsuite *
next2news
paydro
peecho * (almost there)
pip.io
playlistify
pressdoc *
rapportive
shopwithyourfriends * (coming soon)
shutl
sogeo
submate
tribe of noise
twittercounter
userplus * (alpha)
(see the beta quotient for Y Combinator Demo Day (20%), Plugg (42%), TheNextWeb 2008 (60%), Webware 100 (19%), TheNextWeb 2007 (32%), German Twitter Clones (38%), Hungary (45%), Seth Godin’s Web 2.0 List (37%), DEMOfall 06 (27%), MoMB (37%), TechCrunch (38%), web 2.0 (1 – 25%), germany (60%), rails (5%), connected innovators (83%), apps inspired by flickr (43%) and apps inspired by digg (21%))
Beta Quotient: Y Combinator Demo Day
Bad news (from a betalogical point of view): less than 20% (4 of 21) of the startups which presented themselves at Y Combinator’s Demo Day are released in beta*:
500Friends
Answerly *
CardPool
CHROMAom
Crocodoc
Data Marketplace
Embedly
Embedster *
Etacts
Gamador
Greplin *
Infoharmony *
LaunchHear
NewsLabs
Notifo
Nowmov
Seeing Interactive
TweetBracket
Tweetflow
Zencoder
Zenedy
(see the beta quotient for Plugg (42%), TheNextWeb 2008 (60%), Webware 100 (19%), TheNextWeb 2007 (32%), German Twitter Clones (38%), Hungary (45%), Seth Godin’s Web 2.0 List (37%), DEMOfall 06 (27%), MoMB (37%), TechCrunch (38%), web 2.0 (1 – 25%), germany (60%), rails (5%), connected innovators (83%), apps inspired by flickr (43%) and apps inspired by digg (21%))
Beta Quotient: Plugg
Good news (from a betalogical point of view): more than 40% (8 of 19) of the startups which presented themselves at the Startup Rally of the Plugg Conference are released in beta*:
anewsme
apprupt *
collibra
datpresenter
distimo
english-attack *
fits.me *
getyoo *
giswiz * (ninja)
hipui
inbox2 *
lumoflow
razwar
sclipo
shotools *
smarkets
stupeflix
submate *
tweetmeme
Startups Rally - Part I - Elevator Pitches (1 of 4)
Startups Rally - Part I - Elevator Pitches (2 of 4)
Startups Rally - Part I - Elevator Pitches (3 of 4)
Startups Rally - Part I - Elevator Pitches (4 of 4)
(see the beta quotient for TheNextWeb 2008 (60%), Webware 100 (19%), TheNextWeb 2007 (32%), German Twitter Clones (38%), Hungary (45%), Seth Godin’s Web 2.0 List (37%), DEMOfall 06 (27%), MoMB (37%), TechCrunch (38%), web 2.0 (1 – 25%), germany (60%), rails (5%), connected innovators (83%), apps inspired by flickr (43%) and apps inspired by digg (21%))
MoMB 4 | 7777 Betas
The MoMB recently turned four and also just crossed the 7777 betas mark (the 7777th app listed is the super sharp MaYoMo.)
A few fun charts:
As most of you know we focus on plain vanilla public betas (78.6%). But we also collect sites in alpha (4.7%), sites which have not publicly launched yet (private alphas, private betas, sites in stealth mode, …) and require some sort of invitation to get in (14.7%), or sites which come in some other beta-ish (gamma, zeta, feta, …) flavor (1.8%).
Google has launched only 2.2% of all betas,
but they still lead the pack compared to Yahoo, Microsoft and Amazon.
Beta launches since 2005. It doesn’t seem like the beta-phenomenon is cooling down soon, so stay tuned.
Btw: you can follow me on twitter here or on FriendFeed here and new additions to the MoMB are retweeted here
(see also 5555 Betas, MoMB 2 | 4000 Betas, 2001: A Beta Odyssey and 1000 Betas)
Bye Bye Beta
I guess this day had to come: Gmail is now out of beta. Gmail was the very first site I have listed back in 2005 and it’s the most popular beta Google has ever released, sad to see the beta tag go.
But Google recognizes the cultural dimension of the beta tag, so they also announced a ‘Back to Beta’ feature which you can enable in Gmail Labs.
1,111 Twitter Apps
I just stumbled upon the 1,111th Twitter application (the lovely Twittami from Italy) – time for a few fun stats:
Twitter apps since 2007 (518 in 2009 so far)
only 18% of Twitter apps are released in beta
massive 32% of all apps launched in 2009 are based on Twitter
The data are not exhaustive of course, but I do track a lot of sites. Since I’m missing both Twitter and other sites the overall picture should be about the same.
I’ve also updated the Twitter 100 list:
twitter (19161 overall)
tweetdeck (5783 overall)
twitterfeed (5742 overall)
twitter-search (5373 overall)
wefollow (5207 overall)
twittervision (5078 overall)
twhirl (4598 overall)
twitpic (4220 overall)
twistori (3559 overall)
tweetscan (3078 overall)
hashtags (3062 overall)
Beta of the Day
A big shout to John Blossom (@jblossom) who startet a MoMB Beta of the Day series on Twitter.
The Yearbook
launches 2005 – 2008
I’ve added a fresh set of lists – the yearbook – to the labs section. Basically they organize the mixin top 100 list by year:
6000 Betas
The MoMB just crossed the 6000 betas mark (the 6000th app listed is the super sharp youcalc.)
It doesn’t seem like the beta-phenomenon is cooling down soon, so stay tuned.
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
Status: alive and well – purchased by Google in 2006, became the basic building block of Google Docs.
Nr. 2: flickr
Status: alive and well – was acquired by Yahoo.
Nr. 3: Netvibes
Status: alive and well
Runners-Up: (alphabetical)
Status: alive
Status: alive
Status: alive and well – also puchased by Yahoo.
Status: alive and well
Status: alive
Status: alive
Status: alive – also acquired by Google, was integrated in Google Analytics as part of the redesign.
Status: still around.
Status: alive – didn’t quite match the expectations, but let’s not forget that Twitter is a spin-off.
Status: alive – small but dedicated group of users.