Beta-licious

Yeah, the air conditioning is back on at my library!

A few days ago my husband passed on a link to Valley Beta. You can sign up as a potential beta tester for new Web 2.0 apps. You fill out a profile and they broker your participation to developers who can pick testers by "demmy-graphic and location." We'll see if library students can find a niche.

These same people also run the equally cool-making and less work intensive Valley Schwag, which sends you a monthly care package of schwag that startup software companies distribute for a subscription fee of 14.95/month. I'm pretty new to the Web 2.0 world, but I'd sure love to look like I was in the know!

Got Gwigle?

Thanks to Wired, I now know about this fun way to learn advanced search techniques on Google. Gwigle is an online game that challenges you to guess what Google search terms yielded a given set of results. Along the way they throw advanced techniques into the filled in part of the search bar, such as the minus symbol (to exclude certain results) and "intitle" (to find webpages with the search term in their title). All of these cool ways of getting closer to getting the exact hit you need are out there, but I had procrastinated getting up to speed until this fun, challenging, fast method made it irresistable. I barely realized I was learning.

Why don't more tech tutorials work like games? I had a lot more fun working my way through the levels and seeking tips as I needed them than reading about it or watching a disembodied clicker do it on a powerpoint presentation.

Thanks Gwigle!