./emilychang eHub

I have a request of ehub: start another publication that deals only with sites that can actually be used.

I know it’s all hip and cool to cover every single startup that’s still in oh-so secret “private beta”. And for people who are in the industry and want news of every startup it’s probably useful.

But for us normal people, it’s incredibly frustrating to read about sites and then find out you can’t even use them. In the past I’ve signed up for private betas and when I eventually get an email invite 3 months later, I have no idea what it is for and can’t remember why I was interested in the service anyway. And in the meantime, the “totally cool” startup saw fit to send me like 5 spam emails detailing all of their way cool features that they’re adding, like my life is hanging on they’re every development.

I’d like another publication that only covers sites that I can actually use right now.

Jay, thanks for your feedback. Since eHub started in 2005 we’ve listed services that were about to go live. We actually did it for the “normal people” who might be looking for that exact type of application so they would know a product was about to be released. Consider it a heads-up and not something meant to frustrate you.

Every description has the status listed in the last sentence and we thought that was enough to let readers know the status.

We can add the “in beta” applications to a category or as the first sentence if that would help you. Some of these changes are in the works for our next version of eHub anyway. Thanks.