↓ Alpha – Beta – Gamma … websites

There are so many beta releases each month but very few that really make it after a year or so. Like non internet-based start ups, most of these original web services propose imaginative usages without solid business models.

As most experts agree since Google started using the “beta” adjective for its products, “Beta” has lost its meaning. Now is something more like: gorgeously designed, efficient and “cool” finished service with the right to bug.

Funny how marketing evolves huh?

Here are some great examples of polished betas…

Let’s start with Jinni… or the “Movie Genome”, the video version of Pandora (Music Genome Project) although significantly smaller. With Jinni users can either search for movies through the highly customizable Jinni search engine, or create your own Taste Type Mix and let Jinni recommend you. Are you a Hero, an extremist, a social animal or an escape artist?

The community plays a big role (not only the algorithm) as any Jinni user can rate, vote and decide how to categorize any show or film. Just perfect for discovering those favourites you didn’t even know they existed.

Business? Of course, we’re all here for money… their links to buy, rent, watch content from Amazon, Blockbuster, Netflix or Hulu can’t be philanthropy can they?

(If you ask them for a beta they’ll give it to you veeery probably).

Yauba.com is said to be the world’s first Privacy Safe^TM search engine. This means that you can search and navigate sites as if you were using an anonymous web surfing program. No more cookies or data retrieval from Google?

Mmmmmmm, I’d really like to know where the business is here… if you’re not spied then there’s no ad targeting, no profiling …. No attractiveness for advertisers.

Hunch.com is about helping indecisive people who are looking for a quick answer. Unlike Yahoo Q&A, once the user poses his doubt, hunch will ask him a series of questions (submitted by other members) using their responses to generate an ideal answer. You can vote in the end whether you agree or not.

The user interface is extremely similar to that of Jinni: clean, simple, straightforward: a trend that some big companies should pay attention to!

Business? Well there must be something in there as I don’t think Mss Caterina Fake (also Co-founder of Flickr) is in it just because she loves to create start-ups. She’ll sell it sooner or later (oh yes she will) to a stupid big enough company like… Yahoo or Google who will buy it.

(Taking the personal questionnaire to “teach Hunch about you” is a way too long even boring experience. Oh and if you ask them, they’ll also give you an invit).

See you @ Rennes