In The News

Short release cycles, continuous deployment, automatic updates, and a fear of social media tattling on beta defects are causing vendors to forgo beta testing and find new ways to get useful user feedback.

My late-night stroll through Austin with uTest CMO Matt Johnson was a highlight. He told me all about Applause, uTest’s Mobile App Analytics. It sounds like a cool way to find out if your app is winning with customers.

This morning Forbes released its second annual list of America’s Most Promising Companies, and the theme, in their words, was technology. No surprise, then, that of the 25 companies named, four were from Massachusetts.

The list of 100 privately held, high-growth companies with bright futures is based on growth (both in sales and hiring), quality of management team and investors, margins, market size and key partnerships.

Southboro-based uTest said today it has launched a mobile app called Applause, which analyzes more than 50 million reviews from the Apple and Google Play app stores to help companies better measure app quality and user satisfaction.

Applause is quality assurance software for the Apple and Android app stores, designed to make it easier for companies to understand how users are rating their mobile apps.

uTest has accomplished the seemingly impossible: It can now quantify the quality of the apps for iOS and Android.

Launched as a desktop platform only late 2008, uTest has managed to become one of the biggest ongrowing communities of its niche (with a few major acquisitions and funds alongside)...We have tried a few Bug testing platforms, but found the uTest App to make them all eat dust.

uTest has been recognized as the 16th fastest growing private company in the United States – and the 2nd among all IT service companies — on the 2012 Inc. 500 list.

US testing company uTest has acquired Polish mobile app testing tools provider Apphance in a deal that's thought to be the biggest of its kind in the country.

Software tesing and quality control services provider uTest Inc. has acquired mobile app quality tools Apphance from Poland's Polidea for a few million dollars in cash and shares.

Some consolidation in the area of companies that offer tools to mobile developers, specifically in the area of quality testing — a must-have for developers working in the highly fragmented world of smartphones and tablets. Boston-based uTest has made its first strategic acquisition: Poland-based Apphance, which it is buying from its parent company Polidea in a seven-figure deal, consisting of cash and uTest equity for Polidea.

uTest, a Southborough, Mass.-based operator of a software testing marketplace, has acquired mobile app quality tools maker Apphance from Poland's Polidea.

uTest buys Apphance for a few million dollars Software tesing and quality control services provider uTest Inc. has acquired mobile app quality tools Apphance from Poland's Polidea 15 August 12 17:14, Roy Goldenberg Software tesing and quality control services provider uTest Inc. has acquired mobile

When you're crowdsourcing Q/A, standardization can help. That was the decision made by Q/A crowdsourcing firm uTest when it decided to buy mobile test tool developer Apphance. The acquisition was finalized today and will bring the Apphance testing library to uTest's platform and users.

Software testing firm uTest has made its first acquisition, of a Polish company with complementary technology, bringing uTest past the 100-employee mark, the company said Wednesday.

Software testing firm uTest has made its first acquisition, of a Polish company with complementary technology, bringing uTest past the 100-employee mark, the company said Wednesday..

uTest, the Boston-based company specializing in real-world user software testing, has announced today its acquisition of Apphance, a mobile-specific testing tool, from its parent company Polidea in a cash and equity deal in the seven figure range.

The partnership provides Appcelerator’s mobile developers with access to uTest’s suite of mobile app testing services – including functional, usability and security testing.

uTest, a company known for providing a variety of testing solutions for desktop, web and mobile, is launching a new solution designed to grade mobile apps’ performance under real-world conditions, and then compare the app’s rating with that of its competition.

The problem may be more common than you think -- over 75% of apps go live without being tested, leading to bugs, poor design and security flaws. A new group of start-ups is hoping to address this problem by developing testing solutions for companies and brands looking to try out their mobile apps in real-world conditions prior to launch.

uTest crowdsources testing to "contributors" whom it categorizes based on their technical skills, geography, and demographic characteristics. Direct marketing and teleservices firm RuffaloCody estimates uTest costs only 15 percent of what using its own staff for load, functionality, and user acceptance testing would have entailed, says Paul Ruffalo, the firm's director of information systems.

Software testing company uTest has closed a $17 million Series D round led by QuestMark Partners, with participation from previous Scale Venture Partners, Longworth Venture Partners, Egan-Managed Capital and Mesco Ltd., the company announced Monday. uTest, based in Boston, has raised a total of $37 million since it was formed in 2007.

A number of announcements have come out from crowdsource test group uTest in the past couple of years. Today the organization is celebrating as they complete a $17 million Series D round of funding. The company has achieved year-over-year growth of 250% over the past three years and is on track to become the first crowdsourcing company to file an IPO.

Southborough software testing company uTest Inc. has raised $17 million in a Series D round of funding led by QuestMark Partners of Baltimore. uTest noted that previous backers Scale Venture Partners, Longworth Venture Partners, Egan-Managed Capital and Mesco Ltd. participated in the new funding round, which brings the company’s total equity funding to $37 million.

UTest, a Southborough, MA-based startup that crowdsources testing for software applications, said today that it has raised a $17 million Series D financing, at a company valuation that more than doubled since uTest’s last funding round 15 months ago. Baltimore, MD-based QuestMark Partners led the investment: Scale Venture Partners, Longworth Venture Partners, Egan-Managed Capital, and Mesco.

Crowdsourced app-testing startup uTest has raised $17 million in its fourth round of funding. uTest commands a community of more than 45,000 professional testers from 180 countries and helps companies like Google, Microsoft and Intuit extensively test software applications in real-world conditions.

uTest runs a client’s mobile commerce site, for example, through a segment of its network of testers and provides the client with the testers’ findings on security vulnerabilities, if any, in various areas, including confidentiality, data integrity and authentication. uTest will now offer clients the services of Veracode, which uses automated systems to test the security of mobile and desktop sites...

Southborough, MA-based uTest hit the market with its crowdsourced quality assurance testing service in a slightly unconventional order. uTest first introduced its “full strength” software-as-a-service for more mature, enterprise-level Web companies in 2008, and has nabbed big customers like Google, Microsoft, Intuit...

uTest launched three new solutions to manage the growth of their app testing community – Sandbox, Crash Course, & Test Team Lead. Together, these three initiatives have enabled uTest to qualify new uTesters, provide community-generated training materials, and give select members mentoring opportunities.

uTest announce today three community-driven programs that may represent a paradigm change in mechanisms that drive worker performance. While the advantages of crowdsourcing to leverage a distributed virtual on-demand labor pool, to fulfill a range of tasks from simple to complex appear apparent, it seems the model is not without flaw.

Got bugs? The crowdsourcing craze has extended beyond businesses using the concept to become a business unto itself. Witness uTest, which, like Amazon's Mechanical Turk, offers a ready-and-able labor pool, only in this case with a very specific skill set: Software testing. The company offers on-demand QA for applications in the Web, mobile, gaming, and desktop realms.

Software testing firm uTest is teaming up with Mozilla to create a test case management system that will aid startups and smaller companies. Though the system is yet to be built, users can expect a free download of the open source system from Mozilla, according to a news release from Southborough-based uTest.

Anytime, anywhere: that’s today’s financial services mantra and it is unavoidable fact. Cost can be as low as $5,000 to $10,000 for an iPhone app, said Matt Johnston, CMO at uTest. That figure buys a barebones app. As for time, Johnston said that a thorough, deliberate apps development process would not take more than four months.

CFOs on the move at Genworth Financial, Dynegy, GenMark Diagnostics, uTest, First Solar, Baldwin Technology, Digital River, ZAP, Clearwire... Ann Brady has been named the first CFO of software-testing company uTest Inc. She formerly led finance at Art Technology Group.

uTest has a community of 35,000+ professional testers in 170 countries to help tech companies test their web & mobile apps. Until now it’s the likes of Microsoft & Intuit who have mainly been able to afford these services. But today it’s launching a more affordable version aimed at early stage startups and individual app developers.

Professional software testing firm uTest has today launched a new service aimed at early-stage startups: uTest Express. With this low-cost offering, the company is providing access its community of over 35,000 professional testers who will provide expert feedback about your mobile app.

Crowd-sourced testing platform uTest has just launched a new service aimed directly at helping startups and SMB’s get their mobile apps to market faster and bug free. uTest Express allows small businesses to easily create and execute test plans while giving them access to uTest’s community of 35,000+ testers.

The consumerization of enterprise software applications is no longer on its way – it is here. This movement is empowering a new and increasingly mobile workforce to turn data into information, and information into action – anytime, anywhere. It is crucial that tech execs are prepared to meet the challenges these technologies present to the world of app development and testing.

Another b2b marketer, uTest, which crowd-sources software testing, introduced apps for the iPhone & iPad in January. The apps allow uTest customers & its testers to access the company's Web platform from tablets & smartphones. The app also brought an unanticipated benefit: A number of people who have discovered it have signed on as testers for uTest.

Weekends used to be for golf, but uTest's crowdsourced testing community can now stay on top of their projects while they’re on the course. uTest last week introduced applications for the iPad and iPhone, and with these apps, testers can report bugs and update the status of their work from their phones. Managers can also use the app to check their projects.

Southborough-based uTest’s free iOS apps (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) hit the iTunes store yesterday to meet the needs of developers across the globe. The company offers a community of over 30,000 professional testers across the globe for software and app developers looking to test their products before they hit the market.

uTest launched its first iPhone and iPad apps to provide its customers and testers with the ability to access their software testing projects on-the-go. With uTest customers spanning six continents and its 30,000+ testers spanning the globe, the apps enable uTest’s community to stay on top of complex and dynamic global testing projects 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

There are a few different models for how these crowdsourcing sites make money and pay workers. Software testing site uTest charges its clients per test cycle, which varies depending on the project, according to Matt Johnston, vice president of marketing for the Boston-based company. Using uTest is often 30 to 40 percent less expensive than hiring testers or outsourcing.

Crowdsourcing startups are hot again, with investors spurred on by one sizable exit and talk of an IPO or two next year. Venture capitalists are once again enamored with crowdsourcing—and for good reason. Crowdsourcing startups are seeing rapid revenue growth, developing sophisticated business models and focusing on potentially lucrative markets.

Online labor by independent "cloud" workers probably represents nearly US$1 billion per year in earnings in the U.S. Services like uTest, Amazon.com's (AMZN) Amazon Mechanical Turk, and LiveOps draw on this "human cloud" of skilled workers that can be employed on a flexible basis to carry out one-time tasks.

Software company saw the largest investments for the quarter, raising $847 million between 136 companies. This was an increase of 19% in total funding amount.On demand contact automation manager Contact Solutions raised the largest round in the quarter ($46 million); followed by application testing startup uTest with $13 million.

Every month or so, we hear someone bleat about how fragmented the Android market has become, how Google has ceded control of Android to the device manufacturers, and how writing and testing Android software is a nightmare. This is complete nonsense. To see how this perception might have come about, look at the first pie chart on TweetDeck's Android beta test blog posting.

It was the strong feeling that the Software Testing industry was changing, for the better. Listening to Roy Solomon (uTest), Tom Lounibos (Soasta) and James Whittaker (Google) I really felt I was in front of game changers! People who truly believe they can make a difference in the industry, thinking outside the box, bringing innovation in an area of the Software Industry...

Every­one went in with expec­ta­tions of grad­ual growth as is com­mon with most brands that ini­tially hit the Face­book sphere. Growth on a Face­book page is usu­ally grad­ual and requires patience to achieve sig­nif­i­cant results. The build-up of fans can be a chal­lenge. The fruits of our cre­ative brain­storm­ing and col­lab­o­ra­tion brought to life our “Bug of the Month” com­pe­ti­tion idea.

Defining “crowdsourcing” — like defining “social media” — can be a bit of a challenge. The term not only seems to have multiple meanings depending on who’s using it, but it’s also being used to define a whole new landscape of activities that didn’t exist in their current form a mere five years ago. Crowdsourcing means turning to the many people outside of your own company...

Here in the US, in case you haven’t noticed, we have a pretty severe problem with unemployment. While numbers of jobs dwindle and those seeking them continue to grow, sites such as Monster, Indeed and CareerBuilder have an opportunity to cash in on the otherwise-difficult market. According to uTest, however, these sites all have serious issues of their own.

uTest, a leader in crowdsourced software testing announced September 13th that they've closed a $13 million C round investment, one of the largest investments ever made in a crowdsourcing company. This brings the company's total funding up to $20 million. The round was led by Scale Venture Partners in Northern California, with uTest's existing investors.

uTest, a crowdsourcing company that does in-the-wild mobile app testing, has just finished a strong series C investment round raking in almost $13M. The round has been lead by their primary investor, Scale Ventures, but past investors also participated – such as Longworth Partners, Egan-Managed Capital and Mesco Ltd.

uTest Inc., Southborough, MA software testing marketplace, raised $13 million in a Series C funding round led by Scale Venture Partners of Foster City, CA, the company announced Monday. Series A investors Mass Tech Development Corp. & Mesco returned to participate in the C round, as did Series B investors Egan-Managed Capital and Longworth Venture Partners.

uTest, which helps big companies crowdsource their software QA testing to a community of 30,000 testers, today raised $13 million in Series C financing. It’s one of the largest venture funding rounds ever collected by a crowdsourcing company, and from the size of the round, “you should take it as a validation that their business model is working,” say Sharon Wienbar.

Fortify and Ounce Labs aren’t the only code checkers on the market. Microsoft has long had a tool nicknamed Canary for checking code. And the recently launched uTest is an open community of software testers that check applications for flaws, errors and shortcomings. While many see HP’s acquisition of Fortify as part of its arms race with IBM, I think there’s more to it.

In 2010 $6.2 billion dollars will be spent by consumers at mobile app stores. Mobile app stores expect to exceed 4.5 billion downloads, and projections for mobile app sales in 2013 are expected to reach $21.6 billion dollars. Looking at these numbers it is no wonder that business executives are wondering why their development teams aren’t churning out new mobile apps to the marketplace at a feverish pace.

The general public calls them glitches, the tech community calls them bugs; either way, they’re the reason why websites and mobile apps don’t quite do what they’re supposed to do. Have no fear app developers, marketers, and executives — uTest, based in Southborough Mass., has 27,200 testers worldwide, on-hand to test your website, mobile app, or desktop software.

As soon as a new technology gets traction, smart criminals figure out a way to misapply it. And one of the hottest features in the mobile world, location awareness, is next in line for exploitation. Services like Foursquare, Loopt, and Gowalla, which combine user-generated reviews with social networking, provide particularly attractive targets.

Crowdsourcing mobilizes crowds to help solve problems, from cleaning BP's oil spill to marketing your company effectively. That's great for the organization with the problem, but is it good for you? My experience is that it depends. The new trend in crowdsourcing coordinating expert crowds to attack tasks requiring specialized knowledge.

While the popularity of social check-in services appears to be on the rise, a recent study by uTest, a software testing marketplace, revealed that top apps such as Foursquare, Gowalla and Brightkite have produced near 900 bugs between them. The uTest “Check-In Challenge” surveyed more than 300 uTesters from nearly 40 countries.

uTest has released the results from a check-in services "Bug Battle" competition, in which over 300 users from about 40 countries reported bugs in popular check-in services Fousquare, Gowalla, and Brightkite. A total of 870 bugs were reported - technical, functional, and GUI bugs in the web and mobile apps of these three services.

Following reports that some of the young location-based services are spitting out server errors as traffic is exploding, crowd-sourced testing company uTest decided to check out the three most familiar players in the arena. It’s conclusion: Foursquare, Gowalla and Brightkite have 870 software bugs in their applications.

Which social location service is the fairest of them all? Foursquare almost swept the board in a consumer survey conducted by uTest, to assess the merits of three big social location services. It's survey, of 300 people in 35 countries, focused on Foursquare, Gowalla and Brightkite, and 6 categories: Ease of use, location accuracy, opportunity to earn deals, status features and more.

Depending upon who you ask, crowdsourcing is either evil, revolutionary, or a next gen of internships. But one thing that ALL crowdsourcing companies like to preach is how loyal and trustworthy and professional their community is. I know because I’ve read it in 100 different sites.

MA-based software testing startup uTest last week launched the third generation of its crowdsource software testing platform. Version 3.0 of includes an enhanced tester rating system, a new collaboration tool, a revamped user interface and new test-cycle wizards to enhance both customer and tester experiences. uTest’s platform provides crowdsourced testing services to...

At the 5th Cloud Expo -- Javits Center/NYC, April 19-21 -- SOASTA, a provider of cloud testing & uTest, a software testing marketplace, announced a partnership to leverage their respective on-demand offerings to help customers deliver the best possible website user experience to their visitors. This partnership enables the two firms to work closely together in multiple ways.

uTest is a “marketplace” that allows developers to test their software using the power of a 25,000+ strong community of professional testers across 162 countries.The company today announced a brand new addition with its launch of MobileAppTesting.com, a site dedicated to mobile app development and testing.

As the trend continues to gain momentum, some entrepreneurial freelancers have learned to stand out. Roughly 15 to 20 percent of the audio and video producer's income is generated from an unlikely source: crowdsourcing websites and contests. uTest - Crowdsources the QA process of software development, paying testers for each "approved" bug they submit.

Software testing marketplace uTest today announced the results of its so-called “TV Networks Bug Battle” competition. More than 500 software professionals from 30 countries around the world participated in the quarterly competition, reporting a total of 908 technical, functional and GUI bugs in the web and mobile apps of NBC, CBS, Fox and ABC.

Most companies don’t have the luxury of having thousands of beta testers to run their products and provide feedback. As a result, they depend on a core of dedicated customers or enthusiasts... Into this breach recently stepped uTest, a startup based in MA. The founders’ unique vision was to engage a worldwide community of testers who would be paid for finding defects.

Of all the challenges that come with launching the next great mobile app, testing is too often an afterthought. But in an industry where iPhone, BlackBerry and Android apps are fighting for media attention, investor dollars and consumer wallets, the pressure to get apps built, tested and launched quickly has never been greater. So why ignore the critical app testing phase?

With the release of version 2.9 of its community-based testing environment, uTest is including tools to build test teams and clone test cycles to boost efficiency, especially for recurring customers. Detailed tester profiles will enable uTest to more precisely match customers’ Web, desktop and mobile app testing needs with members of its global QA community.

Welcome to the world of crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing taps into the collective intelligence of online communities to complete business-related tasks that a company would normally either perform itself or outsource to a third-party provider. For those who have not yet discovered the power of crowdsourcing, take a look at why it makes financial and strategic sense.

Planning an iPhone app to promote your business? Join the club. Apple's store offers 100,000 apps, & iPhone and iPod touch owners worldwide have downloaded more than 2 billion of them, according to Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple. Its main competitor, Google's Android platform, offers about 11,000 choices. In such a crowded marketplace, how do you make your product stand out?

Amazon is more bug-free and user-friendly than rivals Walmart.com and Target.com. That's the conclusion of a review conducted by 600 software professionals from 20 countries sponsored by uTest, a Boston start-up. uTest retains a stable of 21,000 professional testers from 159 countries available to run any website through the paces.

Amazon.com has fewer bugs on its site than Walmart or Target, according to a new study by software-testing firm uTest, which had 600 testers scour the sites in November. Out of the 500 bugs discovered across the three sites, 94 were found on Amazon.com, 150 were on Walmart's site, and 261 on Target’s online presence. Amazon was most visited on Cyber Monday.

uTest announced the availability of new testing platform version 2.8. The present version is offered with an updated user interface, concurrent availability of test reports & enhanced tester milieu recording conveniences. The design provides simple and effective functioning with Web site, software testing blog & tester forums.

For anyone looking to deploy an application across multiple mobile platforms and a gazillion different handsets, one massive probel awaits them: QA. uTest solves this problem with an army of testers across the world. Crowdsourced QA… Problem solved. uTest presented earlier this year at Under the Radar: Clarity in the Cloud - a SaaS/business apps-focused conference.

As part of each week’s Startup Report, Mass High Tech highlights five startup companies, and their business goals, that are profiled in the New England Tech Directory. uTest Inc.: Founded in 2007, uTest has developed an online marketplace for software testing services. The company is based in Southborough.

That’s a good question – and one that’s hotly debated in crowdsourcing circles. From my perspective, the first criteria is that something of substance needs to be sourced. I’ve heard people say that they’re going to “crowdsource a question” and then simply publish a one-time poll with a single question – that’s not crowdsourcing to me, it’s glomming onto a media-friendly term.

This blog has covered various aspects of outsourcing in some depth; today we turn to a business model that is at the crossroads of the older outsourcing model and the growing preference for on-demand and SaaS services. uTest uses crowdsourcing for its customers to test their Web, desktop, and mobile applications through a large community of software testers worldwide.

Under the Radar grad uTest, a network which outsources software testing using a global network of pros’ time and talent, today announced hitting 20,000+ testers in 157 countries. That’s a lot of testers, amigos. If you don’t have the funds to hire a dedicated QA team, uTest may be a nifty solution to test your web, mobile, gaming and desktop applications.

uTest is a software testing company that provides companies with project managers, approved testers and real-time reporting to guarantee bug-free software. For those developing Web, mobile and desktop software, uTest can match your creation with appropriate testers to guarantee bugs are found and with detailed information about each problem.

Next-generation enterprises looking to drive efficiency and innovation have recently been able to tap into online communities to offload work. For the first time since outsourcing became prevalent in the 90s -- making it easier to move tasks out to partners to do something better or more cheaply than you could -- businesses now have a new, potent, and often far cheaper option.

Which search engine is infested with the most bugs? That would be Bing, according to a software firm that rated Google (NSDQ:GOOG), Yahoo (NSDQ:YHOO) and Google's new Caffeine update head and shoulders above Microsoft's new search engine. The findings come from uTest's 2009 third- quarter Bug Battle Report.

In a competition to find search engine bugs, Google came out on top of Bing, while also earning higher general praise than Microsoft's new search enging. More than 1,100 people in over 50 countries participated in the competition (PDF), held by Southborough, Massachusetts-based uTest. uTest holds quarterly crowdsourced competitions.

In a competition to find search engine bugs, Google came out on top of Bing, while also earning higher general praise than Microsoft's new search engine. More than 1,100 people in over 50 countries participated in the competition (PDF), held by Southborough, Massachusetts-based uTest. uTest holds quarterly crowdsourced competitions.

Microsoft's Bing continues to enjoy month after month of incremental growth since its launch in May, reaching double-digit market share in August. Online software testing marketplace uTest released the results of its Search Engine Bug Battle on Tuesday.

A report released this morning from UTest, a global community of software testers, states that more than 600 bugs, with 13% of these classified as 'showstoppers', were found in Google, Yahoo, and Bing in August by an independent group of 1100 software professionals. I'm not too surprised at the results; Google continues to shine, but Bing is definitely gaining traction.

While Microsoft has been able to make small inroads in the search engine market since launching Bing, when users test search engines side-by-side, Google still wins in a landslide. uTest, which conducts usability testing for Internet and software companies, had 1,100 of its respondents test Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Google’s upcoming improved search – Caffeine.

Boston-based uTest, a startup that crowdsources software quality-assurance projects to a global community of 19,000 freelance testers, announces the official results of its first “Search Engine Bug Battle.” uTest’s bug battles are quarterly contests in which the company’s freelance members compete to discover bugs in popular software applications.

In addition to the online and book training options, you will want first-hand experience. Nothing can replace experience – no classroom training, book reading or cert processing can replace actually testing software. There are crowd-source test agencies (http://www.utest.com being the first to mind for me) which allow you to actually test software.

In the right circumstances, ‘crowdsourcing’ offers a rapid and cost-effective new approach to software testing. There was a time when software testing was a neglected afterthought, a tedious chore for developers once their real work was done. A number of trends are changing that perception, however. First is the emergence of the Agile framework of software development.

So what else can be crowdsourced? It turns out that there are plenty of dedicated crowdsourcing services that can be used for businesses. I've collated a bunch of the best ones, and some of them are really great. If you want to conduct online testing then uTest’s community of “18,000 QA professionals from 150 countries” might be the place to start.

Most people are familiar with crowdsourcing from reading the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia, which uses volunteers across the world to update its content. But US-Israeli firm uTest has pioneered crowdsourcing to help companies test their software. Advocates of crowdsourcing claim that it allows them to test software in fraction of the time/cost taken by traditional software testing.

uTest announced that its community of testers has grown 30% in the second quarter of 2009. I am very impressed with the uTest value proposition, and it is clear that others are as well. uTest also added new collaboration tools to its platform, and received rave reviews by members of the media and awards organizations.

The Mass Technology Leadership Council has announced a second batch of finalists for its Technology Leadership Awards, this time naming the emerging executive, CTO, investor and emerging innovative company of the year. uTest is up for emerging innovative company of the year! The top 5 innovators chosen are uTest, American Well, CloudSwitch, Ksplice and WiTricity.

A number of applications that link users with the social networking site Twitter are buggy and frequently malfunction, a Southborough, Mass., software testing company tells the Boston Globe. uTest Inc. based its assessment on feedback from software developers, the paper says. More than 600 uTesters from 29 countries around the world competed in the quarterly contest.

The Globe is reporting that Southborough-based uTest found 300 bugs, 60 of them serious, in applications for Twitter, the microblogging sensation used mostly to find out to which NBA team to which you have been traded. The bugs were found in Twitter peripherals including Twhirl, TweetDeck and Seesmic Desktop.

You may think your favorite Twitter application – Tweet Deck, Seesmic or Twhirl, for example -- is saving you time, but regardless of what you are using, it is likely riddled with bugs. Professional testers rated the top Twitter applications according to bugs and usability. Here's who won, and who you should avoid.

Real-Time Bugs?uTest, the world’s largest QA marketplace, announced results of “Twitter Apps Bug Battle”, a week long contest for 600 of its 18,000 QA professionals.The mission: find the bugs in the five most popular Twitter desktop apps – Tweet Deck, Seesmic Desktop, Twhirl, Tweetr and Twitteroo.

Software testing marketplace uTest, has announced the addition of application profiling to its platform. The addition has been made in a bid to better match customers' testing needs with members of uTest’s global QA community. Also featured in version 2.3 of the uTest platform is a new discussion thread tool.

Bangalore: With the economic downturn, companies are looking at all options to cut costs and crowdsourcing is the latest entrant. By spending a fraction of the money for designing products, crowdsourcing looks like an attractive option for companies. The crowdsourcing marketplaces are uTest, CrowdSpring, InnoCentive, and TopCoder.

uTest was named a Finalist in the "Best New Company of the Year" category in The 2009 American Business Awards(SM). More than 2,600 entries from companies of all sizes, both public and private, and in virtually every industry were submitted for consideration in more than 40 categories. The results of the 2009 ABAs thus far are a testament to the resilience, creativity, and hard work.

A Bug Battle to test & compare the top six Twitter desktop apps is being held by uTest. Occasionally (as in once per quater), uTest.com will hold a "Bug Battle" for its community of software testers. This current Bug Battle runs from May 28 to June 3, 2009. Over $3000 in prize money will be awarded. Happy bug finding!

Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange has announced the finalists of its 2009 MITX Technology Awards, including uTest in the Cloud track. Founded in 1996 as the Massachusetts Interactive Media Council, Cambridge-based MITX includes more than 250 member companies consisting of digital technology, marketing and media professionals.

uTest, the crowdsourced software testing start up, has relaunched its website today, putting a face into the crpwdsourced community of QA testers. The new site includes the ability to “Meet the Testers”, letting anyone to drill down into the 16K strong testing community through an interactive map by country, OS, browser, tester experience, etc.

"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.

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.