If you're a reader of this site, you know I'm a sucker for betas (and if you're not a reader, feel free to subscribe and become one). I spend a few hours a day searching for new sites, and if they have a beta tag, which most of them do, I'm hooked. These 19 sites are currently on my radar, and I'll do my best to explain why. You'll find a mix of open betas, private betas, and even an alpha or two mixed in for fun. By the way, if the title to this post caught your attention, I've accomplished my goal. I'm participating in a ProBlogger group writing project, and you should too. Here are the betas!
Buxfer is free online personal finance software for budgeting and expense management. I've been using it for about a week, and I'm very impressed. It auto-syncs with your banking info, and auto-categorizes most of the transactions. I've tried Mint, and a few others, and I think I'll be sticking with Buxfer. Keep in mind, it does ask for your banking info, so if you're not into giving out that type of info, this site's not for you.
Are you effing kidding me? This site kicks so much ass, but sadly, will probably be gone soon. I have no idea how it's made it this far, but Mygazines (clever) is a service I'd gladly pay for. They claim they are a free place to browse, share, archive and customize unlimited magazine articles uploaded by you, the Mygazines community. Okay, but what about having every magazine sitting on the news stand right this very second? Cosmo? Yep. Men's Health? It's there, as well as hundreds more. You better go there sooner rather than later, because like I said before, I don't see this one being around too long (although, I hope it stays for good).
WTF? Is that Facebook? Nope, but from what I understand, Fwix was developed from a guy that was part of the Facebook design team (I could be wrong, but I know I read something like that. Google it if you want to find out more). The site claims to show you the most popular activity in your area. It looks amazing, and they just added Orlando tonight, so I'm very excited. Basically, the site aggregates local info from Technorati, craigslist, indeed, newsvine, eventful, and a ton of other sites, to bring you all the local content you could ever want.
Maybe the most anticipated beta in recent months, Tweenky is HOT! It's still in private beta, but I was lucky enough to get whitelisted today, and I can tell you - it lives up to its hype. Think of Twitter baked into gMail, and you have an idea of the UI for this incredible beta. But Tweenky is like no other Twitter client. It has the normal goods like replies, public timeline, and archives, but standouts out above the crowd with features like identi.ca integration, folders (so cool), saved searches, and a slew of other unique tricks. I have no idea why I was selected, but I'm glad I was. Bookmark this site, and check back daily so you can get involved the day it's released to the public. By the way, feel free to follow me in Twitter.
There are so many sports sites, and I've always thought they lacked the information I was looking for. Now that OpenSports is here, my search for the perfect sports site has ended. If you're into sports - any sports - this is the one and only site you'll ever need. After registering for OpenSports, you're allowed to choose an NFL team and an NCAAF team, and you'll be spoon fed news about those teams from all over the net. But the fun doesn't stop there. You can dig into teams standing, schedules, players, player stats, and anything else you need to know. Currently, the sports covered are: Fantasy, NFL, NCAAF, MLB, NBA, NHL, and Olympics.
I haven't registered for this site yet, but it looks interesting. The site claims they are an open and productive community for sharing feedback, a place to interact with other passionate users like yourself and with the product development teams, and a way to fix, improve and shape
the web apps you love. Sounds good to me. Looking at the homepage, you see it has a list of recent activity, and the reason for the activity - new feature, new bug, etc. I'll probably sign up for this tonight and will add an update with any new info I find. If you've used the site, tell us about it in the comments.
I currently run about 300 websites. Most of them are for my Orlando real estate and pool service businesses, but a few are just for fun. I'm always thinking on new sites, but I usually have to write the domain name down, and search for it later, and hope it's available. Not anymore. With Domtxt, you just text your domain name idea to IDEANAME, and they'll send you a text telling you whether it's available or not. If it is, they also send you a code that you can enter into the site, and it will allow you to purchase the domain name.
MeGlobe is a site that does instant messaging with instant translations. I have a sister that speaks Spanish, making it difficult to speak with her, but with this site, it's a breeze. I can see this being a huge asset to companies trying to offer global support for their customers. According to their about page, they are a free web client lets you type in your own language, but sends a translated version, in near real time, specific to the native tongue of whomever you are chatting with. The best part is, the service is free!
Zapproved was all over my feed reader yesterday, so I had to check it out. Zapproved has one mission: to invent technology that minimizes organizational and social barriers to decision-making. They allow you to make a proposal, send it out, and watch the process get handled for a smooth agreement. I don't have a need for this site, but after playing with it for a few minutes, I can tell it will be a huge benefit for office managers, and cube dwellers everywhere.
Yes, FriendFeed has been around for awhile, but today they launched a new beta version, and it makes the original version just seem clunky. FriendFeed aggregates all of your social data into one place, and allows you to see what your other friends are doing in their social neighborhood. FriendFeed picked up some major steam when Twitter was suffering from little birds carrying whales around. FriendFeed poster child Robert Scoble has also had a large part in bringing FriendFeed a little more into the mainstream (although it's still a very long way from BEING mainstream - and I like it that way, thank you very much). The beta version rids you of your tabs, and juices up your sidebar. You can now group all of your friends, and watch that groups feed. There's so much noise on FriendFeed that being able to watch groups make the site a million times more usable. If you liked FriendFeed before, you're going to love it in beta. You can find me on FriendFeed here.
Have I missed anything? Know of any betas that deserve to be on this list? Tell me about them in the comments. I might turn this into a regular feature if I get good feedback, so feel free to tell me if you got anything out of this post.
One more thing, I told you in the beginning that the title to this post was inspired by the ProBlogger group writing project, so if you think you can write a better title for your own post, head over to ProBlogger and sign up for the project. There's a cash prize involved, but I think there's a lot more to be gained from this project than the cash.
Thesis Demo Page
Check out the Thesis live demo here.