Beta
Charging 150,- € for a webservice beta test
Markus Thielmann — Wed, 2008-04-30
GoodGaze claims that it's webservice is able to predict which parts of your website will get attention, based on neuro-scientific research.
If it works "good enough", you'll be able to safe thousends of Euros for a real test, based on the behavior of real probands.
GoodGaze is operated by the Institute of Cognitive Science of the University of Osnabrück.
While the educational background seems strong, I politely doubt that this applies to the business part as well.
After asking for an invitation to the closed beta service, I was told that there are still slots free. One small catch: I have to pay 187,50 € (including taxes, around 278,- USD) to get signed up for the beta service:
Um bei auftretenden Fragen und Vorschlägen zur Verbesserung des Dienstes
schnellstmöglich reagieren zu können, begrenzen wir die Nutzerzahl und
erheben einen Unkostenbeitrag von 150 EUR (zzgl. MwSt.).
I'm testing quite a lot of services and I'm happy to help improving products without getting paid for it. I can hardly imagine to pay for a service which I never tested before, which I never read a single test report of an independent source and which does not clearly state what services I'm charged for and how long I will be able to benefit from them.
So GoodGaze might want to consult some University department, which has some descend understanding of e-commerce requirements.
I'm still hoping GoodGaze is able to deliver what it claims and will find some successful business model, which isn't based upon charging beta testers.
Finally a localized Firefox 3 on Ubuntu Hardy
Markus Thielmann — Thu, 2008-04-17
Sometimes, I "recruit" involuntary beta testers for the next Ubuntu release by just updating their systems. It's not that fair, I know.
One of the major complains was a non-localized Firefox 3. Due to a bug in the language packs, some localizations didn't show up as expected, namely German and Spanish translations.
It seems Bug #202301 was fixed by todays updates. At least for some some languages.