There’s a lot to like about the technology space. Mainly, the innovative products and services that seem impossible just a short time ago. There’s also a lot to dislike about the technology space. Mainly, anyone that disagrees with you.

I’m talking of course about the tech rivalries that dominate the headlines, comments sections, and now, even television ads. But which rivalry is the most heated? I felt the only reasonably way to decide this was to put it up for a vote:

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Great conversations, insightful panels and keynotes, rows of innovative mobile brands… and J.Lo.

That’s pretty much what CTIA’s 2013 show entailed this week in Las Vegas. Here’s a look at a few things we loved about CTIA 2013:

• Sessions: It was easy to love the sessions this year. Day 1 started off with the “Apps Summit” featuring the latest trends in mobile and a lot of talk around development and design. All the sessions were great, especially “Making Commerce Mobile: Strategy and Trends of Mobile Commerce” led by Sharon Wienbar, member of the uTest board and partner at Scale Venture Partners. The panel was also led by Jake Ward, co-founder and executive director at Application Developer Alliance, and others. The session looked at the latest trends in mobile technology, as well as the challenges brought on by device fragmentation and the ever changing mobile landscape. Another favorite was on day two, and was led by Michael Facemire, Forrester Analyst. The session titled “Technology Solutions for Today’s Mobile App Development Challenges” addressed the variety in mobile technology, time-to-market demands, UX requirements and how to overcome all of these challenges.
• E-Tech Awards: A big highlight of CTIA was the 2013 E-Tech Awards. Attendees voted and an online panel of highly-respected industry experts, reporters and analysts ultimately judged the submissions on “innovation, functionality, technological importance, implementation and overall ‘wow’ factor,” according to the CTIA blog. We’re thrilled that uTest’s Labs’ app analytics tool, Applause, took home 3rd place in the Enterprise Solution – General Business category. Congratulations to Ericsson’s Connected Vehicle Cloud and GPS Dashboard LLC’s “Check in” App for Salesforce.com, which took first and second place – and to all the nominees!
• Cool Brands: The Sands Expo Center was packed this week, with never-ending rows of new and upcoming mobile apps, development tools and countless other types of brands in the mobile space. We had a great time chatting with folks near our booth in the Mobile Apps Pavilion such as Kodak Developer, CallSnap and Speakerfy, as well as all the hundreds of attendees who stopped by our booth to talk about the importance of in-the-wild testing.

So what was the absolute best part about CTIA 2013?

Maybe you won big on the black jack table, or took a gondola ride through the Venetian – but for us it was the continued power of mobile. Every developer, QA Manager, or business exec we talked to, and every keynote or session we sat in on, was further validation of how mobile continues to be the driving force behind brands of all industries and sizes. Businesses know that their app is their brand and source of revenue – and they also know just how important app quality is. We love that.

So there you have it. A big thanks to CTIA for putting on a great show. See you next time, Las Vegas!

Earlier this year the clever minds at uTest Labs launched Applause – a mobile app analytics product that crawls reviews in the Apple App Store, Google Play, and now Windows Phone Store to provided developers, marketers and brand owners with insightful, actionable, explicit data about app user sentiment.

Since then, Applause has received quite a bit of attention. It is currently a finalist for: the 2013 CTIA E-Tech Awards in the “Enterprise Solution – General Business” category; the 2013 MITX awards in the “Most Insightful: Big Data and Analytics Innovations” category; and the 2013 Stevie Awards in the category of “Tech Innovation of the Year (up to 1,000 employees).”

Well we’re proud to add to that with some great news: Applause has been selected as a “Cool Vendor” by Gartner in the *”Cool Vendors in Mobile Marketing, 2013” report. The recognition comes less than two months after the launch of the Applause Index, the first-ever stock market-like index for the mobile apps economy, and just a few weeks after Applause expanded to begin crawling apps in the Windows Phone Store.

Gartner’s “Cool Vendors in Mobile Marketing, 2013″ “reflects a focus on the areas  Gartner believes form the foundation for any good mobile marketing strategy: platforms, analytics and the ability of a brand or service provider to tie online and offline worlds via mobile devices. Each of the vendors profiled in this year’s research enables or provides one or more of these areas.”

As we know here at Blog Central, mobile apps play an increasingly vital role in how users consume content, conduct commerce and interact with companies.

”Mobile marketers, mobile app developers and digital marketing leaders all have a substantial stake in understanding user engagement with their mobile apps. Flying blind or looking at download metrics alone isn’t sufficient for managing growth and monetization of mobile apps,” stated Gartner in the report.

*”Cool Vendors in Mobile Marketing, 2013” – Mike McGuire and Jake Sorofman, April 26, 2013

You’ve talked; we listened. Over the past few months our engineers have been hard at work tinkering on the latest features for the uTest platform. Based on your feedback we’re excited to announce that we’re now rolling these out. Starting earlier this month, we began the first of a few big rollouts to bring you a more streamlined uTest than ever before.

If you haven’t noticed already, be on the lookout for:

• New Streamlined Organization and Navigation – We’re retiring projects as an organization method and now enable you to assign your internal team members at a product level.
• A New Start Screen – When logging into uTest you’ll now be greeted by the new Products page. Be on the lookout for additional changes here soon.
• Improved Search – You can now search for Product and Test Cycles from anywhere within the uTest platform.
• New Team Management Controls – Teams can now be created and assigned at the company level.

Coming soon:

• A brand new testing scorecard view
• New filters for sorting issues
• One-page test cycle description reviews
• New ways to manage and select your favorite testers
• The ability to customize your notification preferences

Learn more and stay up to date about the latest features >>>

And of course, if you’re new to uTest and don’t know what this all means, be sure to check out our product tour and intro video.

How do you make a ‘killer’ application? This was the question uTest’s CMO, Matt Johnston, addressed yesterday on NBC’s Press: Here in the San Francisco Bay Area.

For those unaware, Press: Here is a Sunday morning roundtable discussion show featuring the top names in Silicon Valley’s tech industry. Yesterday, Press: Here host, Scott McGrew, along with Fortune writer, Michal Lev-Ram, and eWEEK editor, Chris Preimesberger, asked Matt about uTest’s expert-sourcing model, the apps economy and the factors that make an app stand out and succeed. Check out the video here:

How many of you software testers secretly wish these “toys for testers” really existed? (Now how many of you are scheduling time this weekend to paint your Newton’s Cradle like bugs?)

From Cartoon Tester:

If anyone creates Software Bug Twister be sure to stop by the uTest offices so we can play!

What a week it’s been for us down here in air-conditioned Orlando, Florida. Once again, uTest was a proud sponsor of STAREast – one of the premier software testing conferences in the known universe. There’s a lot to love about the event, but if we were forced to narrow it down to 5 things, they would include:

Tutorials: Often times, conferences feature nothing but quick sessions that give you a view from 40,000 feet. Not so much at STAREast. I was lucky enough to attend some of the full-day and half-day tutorials earlier in the week. First up was the Rapid Introduction to Rapid Software Testing by our good friend Michael Bolton. He addressed some the remedies for test teams that are under tight deadlines, but who might also have limited information with which to test. Informative and entertaining, as always. Other notable presenters, who also happen to be former Testing the Limits guests, included James Bach, Scott Barber, Jon Bach, Karen N. Johnson, Dan Bartow and Cem Kaner.

Sessions: Offering the best of both worlds, STAREast 2013 had a terrific line-up of one-hour presentations, covering just about every major trend in the space today. Highlights for me included Reports of the Death of Testing Have Been Greatly Exaggerated, Presenting Test Results with Clarity and Confidence, Building Successful Test Teams and New Testing Standards Are on the Horizon: What Will Be Their Impact?. If I were a betting man, I’d say several of these presenters will be making appearances on our blog in very near future (maybe even our own Fumi Matsumoto).

Innovation: Remember the software testing space from six months ago? Yeah, it’s completely different now. Few industries evolve at such a rapid pace as that of software development and testing – something that was in full display inside the exhibitor’s hall. Without naming any names – we are a commercial enterprise after all, and we don’t give free advertising – I will say that there are a lot of companies doing some really amazing things. It was great to walk around and talk about how others are disrupting the space.

Networking: STAREast 2013 gave us a great opportunity to meet and network with testing professionals from all over the globe. We spoke with testers in the insurance industry, biogenetics, defense, travel and many others. We even met some current uTesters at the uMeetUp, and our own Jessica Fleet persuaded a few newbies to sign up and give it a try.

Prizes, Games and Other Fun Stuff: We were able to give away a metric ton of free uTest SWAG – t-shirts, mouse pads, pens and other items. Thanks to everyone that stopped by the uTest booth. We also awarded two lucky attendees a Kindle Fire and an iPad. And finally, kudos to the SQE team for keeping things fun with their Shake-Rattle-And-Roll event, along with a few other casual gatherings.

I could go on, but needless to say, it was a wonderful week. Hope to make it to the next.

Until next time, happy testing!

uTest is setting the pace in Massachusetts…and we’re not talking about uTest CEO Doron Reuveni’s ability to run the entire length of the state without breaking a sweat.

Yesterday morning at the Boston Business Journal’s Pacesetters breakfast event, the BBJ named uTest the #1 pacesetting company in the region. In case you were wondering, the Pacesetters list is comprised of seventy Massachusetts companies that recorded the highest three-year growth rate in terms of revenue. Not too shabby.

“We’re thrilled to be named as the #1 Pacesetter in the region by the Boston Business Journal,” said Doron. “It further validates our vision and execution, and is a distinct honor to be recognized alongside so many great companies. Congratulations to all of the Pacesetters.”

It is truly exciting to be a part of the top companies driving the economy in Massachusetts, and as uTest CMO Matt Johnston said earlier this month, “uTest is proud to call the Boston area our home base.”

What makes us even more thrilled is that yesterday’s Pacesetters Breakfast Event was able to raise $76,000 for the One Fund Boston. As BBJ Publisher Chris McIntosh said, “these companies displayed the kind of commitment that symbolizes Boston Strong.”

Congratulations to all the Pacesetters, and thank you to the folks at the Boston Business Journal for putting together such a great award and event!

What’s the worst that can go wrong if you have a software issue? If “my mobile app crashes” or “I didn’t anticipate this much traffic and my website won’t load” is the first thing that comes to mind, consider yourself lucky (though those are issues). If you’re not lucky, your software could be hacked and user information could be corrupted or stolen. Or, if you are American Airlines earlier this week, a software problem could have grounded your entire fleet.

On Tuesday, the airline’s entire reservation system crashed, forcing the company to delay all their flights nationally and effectively rendering the airline unable to update their passengers via app or even the status boards in airports.The problem started sometime just before noon, according to a timeline on DallasNews.com.

A caller from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport says that “nothing is moving.” The status boards show flights on time, but the boards aren’t being updated, he said.

When he checked American’s system, it said his flight was on time, although it was already in a long delay.

The computer problems that are delaying American’s flights and messing up its reservation system are apparently also giving outdated information to airport display boards and online flight-tracking systems.

Any AA flights that hadn’t already departed before the system crash were subsequently grounded. Gathering data from FlightStats.com, Dallas News reported that 417 AA flights had been canceled as of 3 pm – a 35% cancellation rate for the day. American Eagle had slightly lower cancellation rate of 32% – also 417 flights. When all is said and done, USA Today is reporting that more than 1,000 flights were ultimately cancelled because of the issue – two-thirds of the fleet’s scheduled flights.

The problem can be traced back to one computer system that failed. From the New York Times:

The airline said the issue was caused by an inability to get access to its reservations system, called Sabre. The electronic system, often described as the brains of an airline, is responsible for bookings and reservations but also manages a wide variety of functions related to flights, including printing boarding passes, online check-ins, ticketing, and tracking checked bags.

Sabre, meanwhile, said the issue did not come from its own computer systems. Other airlines, including Southwest Airlines and JetBlue, use the reservation system and have not experienced any outages, said Nancy St. Pierre, a spokeswoman for Sabre.

Read more…

On behalf of everyone at uTest, I want to extend our heartfelt condolences to the victims of Monday’s tragic events in Boston and their loved ones. And we’re sincerely grateful to all the first responders – police, firefighters, EMTs, medical personnel and even runners and spectators of the marathon. Their actions showed the world what the spirit of New England is – selflessness, courage and a willingness to help the moment it’s needed. It’s during these difficult times that you learn about your friends, your neighbors and your city.

The responses of love, skill and courage are part of why uTest is proud to call the Boston area our home base. I also wanted to take a moment to thank our friends, customers, testers and partners for all the texts, emails and messages on social asking if we’re ok. Yes, everyone from uTest is safe, if saddened, by a tragedy that has affected everyone across the region and beyond.

For those who have inquired about how they can help those whose lives have been impacted by this tragedy, here is one (of many) charitable resource for your consideration.

Sincerely,

uTest