News

What if you had a really good Tweet and got cut off in mid-sent . . .Twitter, the popular social-networking site, has elevated spur-of-the-moment commentary and outbursts to must-have business strategy and political tactic. But some users are finding their best work is going unheard because the software applications they use are buggy and can crash.

TweetDeck might have the lead when it comes to Twitter Desktop app users, but is it also the top application when put through usability testing? uTest, a service that lets software developers crowdsource their bug testing, recently conducted a study to find out which Twitter (Twitter) app is the buggiest (or least buggy as the case may be).

Crowdsourcing the testing of Twitter apps has revealed how actual users rate Twitter five apps for function, usability and bugs. More than 600 testers from 29 countries tested the five applications in the week-long competition, finding 320 bugs. Three of the five apps were extremely popular: Tweet Deck, Seesmick Desktop and Twhirl.

uTest: Uses a community of professional testers, i.e. crowd sourcing, to help developers identify software bugs and other issues. Types of testing include functional testing, load and performance, and usability. Customers can view the backgrounds and profiles of 18,000 on-demand testers and grade the quality of their work.

uTest won the Stevie Award for "Best New Company of the Year" in The 2009 American Business Awards. More than 2,600 entries from companies of all sizes and in virtually every industry were submitted. uTest won the honor over worthy finalists, incl. Aster Data Systems, Carpio, Evolve IP, HubSpot, Jivox, Mazooma & Zuora.

A soured economy has prompted a boom in crowdsourcing, but this is a creative, efficient trend that will outlast the recession. The current global economic conditions have forced all of us to do more with less. Unemployed workers may not be able to find traditional paid work in their chosen field, so they're turning to crowdsourcing marketplaces such as uTest.

uTest has an article about the consequences of shoddy software. In this case, software that runs breathalyzer machines in NJ is extraordinarily buggy and is causing innocent people to be convicted of DUI. I urge you to print this article and hand it to your boss each time he thinks about shaving time from the test cycle, skipping the QA process, or cutting the budget.

Software testing company uTest has added an interactive global map to its website, where site visitors can browse testers by country, operating system and experience level. There is also a community forum where over 17,000 testers in 152 countries share ideas and best practices, company executives said. Featured testers are profiled through a thoughtful reputation system.

uTest announced it has been included in Gartner’s list of "Cool Vendors" in Application Development for 2009 . Gartner highlights that "cool vendors and their products represent key trends, directions and emerging practices in application development." uTest’s inclusion in the Cool Vendor report by Gartner is further validation of our crowdsourced software testing model.

Southborough, MA-based uTest, a Web-based service that helps software companies crowdsource their quality assurance processes to freelance testers, relaunched its website today with an emphasis on collaboration tools for its community of more than 16,000 testers. A new forum area allows testers to create personal profiles and share their best practices.

uTest launched a new website that increases visibility into its global testing community and enhances collaboration and information sharing among QA professionals. The new site introduces a “Meet Our Testers” application featuring an interactive global map, a Community Forum and a complete website redesign highlighting the human face of software testing.

"The software space is more competitive than ever -- for example, iPhone just reached its one billionth app download. And with stakes this high, app quality and time-to-market are critical," said Doron Reuveni, uTest CEO. "uTest enables our customers to fulfill their application testing needs, and to do it at a fraction of the cost of the alternatives."

In show #22 Bob and Pat talk to Matt Johnston, VP of Marketing & Community for uTest. uTest has nearly 16,000 testers in 153 countries who get paid for finding bugs in online, desktop and mobile software, and can make pretty nice money doing so. Bob has a bit of advice - test the “usability” of your web site marketing message for a pittance.

Launching a business is hard enough--doing it during a recession takes major guts, a heck of a value proposition and a serious threshold for disappointment. And yet, as layoffs mount (the U.S. unemployment rate is at 8.5% and climbing), the number of start-ups is on the rise too. uTest's CEO Doron Reuveni shares obstacles encountered along the way and some timely advice.

The words I use to describe writing code: “Meep Mopping.” It’s my way of describing the black magic that happens when you’re head-down, meep mopping away, then, voila: something real is born! Code becomes a software product. Something that others can interact with…. Even “oohhhh” and “ahhhh” at. One of the most painful steps in the development process is testing.

I had a lively conversation with Matt Johnston, vice president of marketing and community at uTest, a company whose tagline is "software testing community." Imagine having a pool of 15,000 QA professionals in 150 countries available on call, with each member having a profile of capabilities, and you'll get a good picture of what uTest is all about.

At the risk of sharing some self-serving factoids, I nonetheless found the results of uTest 's social networking Bug Battle interesting. In all, 1,119 testers (using uTest tools) from 64 countries around the world competed in the quarterly contest to find bugs in the three top social networking platforms -- Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace.

uTest, a startup that allows companies to outsource their QA testing to ‘the cloud’ has just concluded its latest quarterly bug battle, during which it put some of the world’s largest social networks to the test. Hundreds of participants did their best to uncover flaws across Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn.

uTest offers mobile applications developers professional quality assurance services via its global community of professional testers. uTest provides mobile application developers with comprehensive testing coverage based on location, language, handset manufacturer, wireless carrier, operating system and more.

The economy has many businesses retrenching or in a holding pattern -- but mobile applications designed to be accessed via smartphones or personal digital assistants (PDAs) are poised to be one of the next big things, according to many experts. If so, what impact will that have on enterprise quality assurance (QA) and testing organizations?

Boston based software application testing company uTest sent us a release today to announce it has appointed Peter Roberts to its Board of Directors. Roberts is a partner at venture capital firm Longworth Venture Partners, which was the lead investor in uTest's recent $5 million round of funding. Roberts also represents Longworth Venture Partners on several boards.

uTest is a new Israeli startup with a unique mission: to allow both small companies and more established ones to save money by "crowdsourcing" all their QA needs. Crowdsourcing refers to the idea that functions that were once performed by an individual can be done more effectively by outsourcing it to an undefined and generally large network of professionals via the Internet.

Boston-based software testing company uTest has expanded into the online games arena, offering technical, functional, usability and load testing services. The company employs 13,000 testers globally, and offers online game developers real-time access to its services. It aims to help developers address usability issues unique to online games.

Growth in the indie gaming industry over the past few years has spurred on the creation of many new tools which are designed specifically to ease game development. Microsoft's XNA platform, for example, makes the coding side of things much easier with its cross-platform support, while devices like the RealView 3D scanner make the creation of art assets easier.

crowdsourcing as a "neologism for the act of taking a task traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people, in the form of an open call. Jeff Howe gives a better definition and describes crowdsourcing as "the application of Open Source principles applied to fields outside of software."

UTest Inc. has secured a $5 million Series B round of funding, the company said. New investor Longworth Venture Partners LP led the round, joined by Eagan Managed Capital LP. Returning investors are the Massachusetts Technology Development Corp. and Mesco Ltd. The new funding brings uTest’s total investment to $7.3 million.

UTest, a marketplace where companies can “crowdsource” the testing of their software, has raised $5 million in a second round of funding. Chief executive Doron Reuveni describes the outsourced testing industry as “an old space that has been there for a while, and it needs innovation.” The company raised a $2.3 million first round.

Venture capital is drying up, with less money flowing in fewer deals, but at least one company managed to score a tidy sum. On Tuesday uTest — which crowdsources software testing — announced it had secured $5 million in Series B financing.

uTest is hosting a "bug battle" beginning at midnight (EST) tonight. Over the next seven days, users running Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3.1, and/or Google Chrome can submit defects that they find within any of these browsers. At the end of the testing period a significant cash award will be given to the tester who reported the most valuable bugs.

The range of tools for automated testing—whether unit, integration, acceptance, or load testing—has greatly expanded over the past several years. At the same time, automated tests cannot completely replace humans in uncovering certain types of software bugs. uTest's Doron Reuveni explains the benefits of having human testers be part of an application's testing cycle.

uTest today announced that Solid State Group, a content management, web applications and services consultancy, is using uTest for a professional social networking website. The flexibility of uTest's SaaS platform and the ability to meet tight deadlines is a huge draw.

My old pal Bob Dylan never spoke a truer phrase than when he said the times they are a-changing. Not a million years ago, the concept of software as a service began taking off; then Salesforce.com launched the platform as a service concept with its Force.com application development platform. And now we have testing as a service, from a company by the name of uTest.

Need your software tested for functionality, usability, and durability by a global supply chain of assessors? A company by the name of uTest, based in Ashland, Massachusetts, is today announcing the general availability of its network of service specialists for the software developer arena. The network is intended to offer a controlled, pseudo real-world trial of a particular application.

Exposing your applications to the globe via the Internet can be downright scary, but exposing your applications to a global community of testers on-demand can be downright effective, according to three companies that recently completed pilots with uTest. uTest offers a hosted infrastructure for QA and usability testing with a pay-per-bug business model.

Crowdsourced QA service provider uTest made waves late last year when the company raised $1.7 million in funding. Nearly two months later, I got a chance to speak with uTest’s CEO, Doron Reuveni, to see what the next steps would be, now that the company has launched its beta and is beginning to gain traction.