MoMB

Beta like it's 2001

the beta according to Google in 2001

Celebrating its 10th birthday, Google has brought back their index from January 2001. E.g. beta

☍ 30.09.2008

Beta is a state of mind

slightly off topic, but an interesting interpenetration between the systems beta, twitter and art: 854467791 @ Twit2art #47

(via After Twit2art, here comes Auction Art)

☍ 22.09.2008

5555 Betas

The MoMB just crossed the 5555 betas mark (the 5555th app listed is the super sharp Ameritocracy.)

A few fun charts:

As most of you know we focus on plain vanilla public betas (77.7%). But we also collect sites in alpha (4.9%), sites which have not publicly launched yet (private alphas, private betas, sites in stealth mode, …) and require some sort of invitation to get in (15.7%), or sites which come in some other beta-ish (gamma, zeta, feta, …) flavor (1.7%).

Google has launched only 2.6% of all betas,

but they still lead the pack compared to Yahoo, Microsoft and others.

We’ve listed sites from 25 languages, about one out of 12 betas is in German.

Interestingly enough only 185 sites (3.33%) have been formally released (i.e. dropped the beta tag) and only 62 sites (1.12%) have gone out of business and entered the deadpool. I try my best to update the status of sites and I definitely missed a few, but even if you triple the numbers more than 90% of all sites remain in perpetual beta and only a handful of sites just die.

The most popular initial letters of betas are S (552), M (459) and T (396); rather neglected letters include X (26), Q (55) and U (71).

Btw: you can follow me on twitter here or on FriendFeed here and new additions to the MoMB are retweeted here

(see also 2001: A Beta Odyssey and 1000 Betas)

☍ 19.06.2008

Beta Quotient TheNextWeb 2008

thenextweb 2008

Good news (from a betalogical point of view): more than 60% (14 of 23) of the startups presenting at the TheNextWeb Conference which will be held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands on April 3rd & 4th are released in beta*:

andunite *
backbase
beezbox
bemba *
cocomment
confnetwork *
ebuddy
empressr *
fav.or.it *
fleck *
goojet * (private beta)
hoera * (under construction)
introniche * (under construction)
lookery
netlog
radionomy *
symbloo *
twingly * (private beta)
ubervu * (demo)
wakoopa
wauw! *
webnode
zilok

(see the beta quotient for 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%))

☍ 26.03.2008

The 50 Most Popular Sites Remixing Twitter

Twitter probably has inspired more cool mashups and remixes than any other site in recent history.

Twitter 50 is a list – in early alpha at best – of the 50 most popular ones ranked by measuring the popularity at del.icio.us.

Excerpt:

twittervision (2914)
twitterrific (972)
twitterfeed (948)
terraminds-twitter-search (662)
twitbin (616)
snitter (474)
hellotxt (467)
twitthis (441)
tweetmeme (358)
twitterposter (352)
twitterholic (343)
twittermap (334)
twittercal (333)
twitteroo (329)
tweet-r (311)
twittergram (297)
twitter-karma (290)
tweeterboard (289)
tweetvolume (284)
twhirl (283)
twitternotes (279)
twitterfox (252)
twitter100 (247)
twitku-2 (247)
twitdir (242)

read the full list here

(btw.: you can follow a Twitter stream of the MoMB here)

☍ 14.02.2008

Start-ups Rally

Slightly off topic: Plugg opened up registrations for its Start-ups Rally

Plugg wants to provide a platform for emerging European tech start-ups looking for early-stage funding and trade press, tech blogger and early-adopter attention. A selection of 20 start-ups with strong roots in Europe will be carefully picked by a jury of renowned industry professionals out of the submitted companies. They will have the opportunity to present themselves on stage in front of the entire audience and have a chance of winning the Plugg Start-Up of the Year Award 2008.

☍ 14.01.2008

Goodbye 2007

We’re on vacation for 2 weeks, for the MoMB that’s a wrap for this year. Thanks for visiting and have a great holiday season!

☍ 21.12.2007

Visual Beta

Minor update: the MoMB just got a fantastic visual search widget (powered by Quintura.) Just enter a search term or click on a popular term in the cloud and a search cloud of related terms is generated automagically.

—

—

Check it out here. It’s a nice way to intuitively dive into the textual subconsciousness of the MoMB.

You can sign up for your own search widget here

☍ 04.11.2007

MoMB 2 | 4000 Betas

Two years and 4 days ago the MoMB was born.

Coincidentally I’ve also just added the 4000th beta (the super sharp Feedor)

If you like statistics:

4003 sites have been added (average of 5.45 per day)

3136 in public beta
194 in alpha
673 in private beta, by invitation, or stealth mode

Of those only 58 (1.44%) went out of business and 226 (5.65%) went out of beta (I might have missed a few.)

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 who have contributed links, feedback, and suggestions.

It doesn’t seem like the beta-phenomenon is cooling down soon, so stay tuned.

☍ 05.10.2007

MoMB Retwittered

There is a brand new Twitter account for the MoMB which automagically gets populated by the fabulous twitterfeed. If you subscribe, you won’t miss a beta never ever again:

(http://twitter.com/MoMB_rss)

The other account is still around, but I’m a lousy twitterer at best …

(http://twitter.com/MoMB)

☍ 27.07.2007

Beta Quotient Webware 100

Shocking news (from a betalogical point of view): only 19% (47/250) of apps chosen by the editors of Webware as finalists for the Webware 100 award (btw. voting closes today) are released in beta.

Browsing 7/25 (28%)
Communications 9/25 (36%)
Community 4/25 (16%)
Data 1/25 (4%)
Entertainment 4/25 (16%)
Media 7/25 (28%)
Mobile 7/25 (28%)
Productivity 4/25 (16%)
Publishing 1/25 (4%)
Reference 3/25 (12%)

(see the beta quotient for TheNextWeb (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%))

☍ 11.06.2007

The Museum of Modern Betas
The Blog