Beta testing 2.0

Today was a great day. I've invited 17 people so far to help test Certifyre.com in private beta mode. I've already been receiving feedback, which is just great.

One of the greatest contrasts between Web 2.0 and Web 1.0 has to be the testing. In Web 2.0, you can literally have thousands of users testing, finding defects, making suggestions, etc. for $0. In Web 1.0, testing cost thousands, if not millions, of dollars.

I remember watching the documentary Startup.com (which is a great study in what-not-to-do, by the way), and one of the founders, the CEO Kaleil, mentioned that they were paying a company $8.5 million dollars for testing! Now I don't know what that $8.5 million paid for. I think they may have been renting a building or something, it doesn't go into detail. But the point is, nowadays you'd be locked up in an insane asylum if you were paying anywhere near that kind of scratch for private beta testing.

Anyway, thanks to all those who are beta testing for us! We appreciate it immensely. Hopefully you find it useful and will keep coming back when it goes live.

Wired cities - Denver needs to pick it up a notch

On the new "America's Most Wired Cities" list by Forbes magazine, Denver ranks 17th, behind such places as three cities in Florida (Orlando, Miami, and Tampa) and Cincinatti, OH (no offense to any of them, I was just kind of surprised). Last year we didn't even make the list! It's not for lack of broadband options, we rank 6th there. But it's because of the low percentage of home broadband subscriptions - 25th overall. I'm surprised at the lack of broadband users in this day and age, and in this technology savvy city. As far as broadband adoption, we're still in the black-and-white days.

Private beta launch

Well, we're in private beta now. If you'd like an invite, please browse to http://www.certifyre.com/ and enter your name and email address into the fields on the front page. Your name will be added to a list (it won't be used for anything else, I promise) and we will send you an invite soon after.

I know my blogging habits have been horrible over the last year, especially the last few months. But now that we are in private beta, I should be able to pick it up a little. But don't hold me to that :-)

Countdown to Certifyre.com private beta

This is cool. I created it with SproutBuilder. I don't know if I'll have to reset the time, but it's fun anyway. The only thing I'm disappointed with is how the logo looks. It looks so much better on SproutBuilder, but published here it's a little second rate.

First look at the Certifyre logo

Here is the first look at the Certifyre logo. David Cowell, who is the other co-founder, printed this banner for us at his day job. We're not sure if we'll ever need it, but just in case we have it.

Here's the actual logo:

Private beta update

It's looking like we will be in private beta late this week or early next week. I've been hammering the site pretty hard myself and finding last minute defects/changes/additions that need to be made. I am now using the site as if I were a normal member and that has given me a new perspective on it. I'm finding that some things are not being done most efficiently or conveniently currently. So I've given Arvind, my web developer, plenty of changes this past week. He's probably getting tired of my change requests :-) I'm sure when we go into private beta, the testers will find plenty more to be fixed and changed. But I'm happy that we are making good progress. I'm seeing my vision become reality.

Embarrassing Google photo

If you ever see David (Certifyre co-founder) and I in a picture like this, please put us out of our misery.