Open Testing 2.0

Tan­gler offers an innov­at­ive approach to open test­ing of online products. A com­bin­a­tion of instant mes­saging and real-time for­ums, Tan­gler provides a repos­it­ory of join­able dis­cus­sions and archives dis­cus­sions for ref­er­ence. The site seems geared towards test­ing of new products in an inter­act­ive envir­on­ment, but noth­ing pre­cludes dis­cus­sion around any topic from the eso­teric to the deeply philo­soph­ical. The inter­face allows for con­veni­ent mix-media embed­ding of objects and a pop-up wid­get to allow for you to be noti­fied of activ­ity in the groups you par­ti­cip­ate in.
From what I can see this is an intriguing hybrid of on-line forum and real-time mes­saging applic­a­tion. The oppor­tun­ity for developers to con­duct pre-release pub­lic test­ing of web-based products is tan­tal­iz­ing, tak­ing a hug step bey­ond a simple bug track­ing inter­face. The biggest chal­lenge is always to find people to com­mit time and engage in a test­ing pro­cess. How­ever, this tool can make the pro­cess more effect­ive allow­ing for the poten­tial of imme­di­ate feed­back and dis­cus­sion of bugs and inter­face quer­ies as they are encountered. This can allow for real-time atten­tion to elim­in­a­tion of con­fu­sion over inter­face pecu­li­ar­it­ies. Addi­tion­ally, by com­mu­nic­at­ing dir­ectly with a developer when the prob­lem is fresh in the test­ers mind a more rich dis­cus­sion can aid product refine­ment. lastly, this tool allows for the exten­sion of the test­ing pro­cess to the widest pos­sible audi­ence of indi­vidu­als simply look­ing for the oppor­tun­ity to see new things, express their opin­ions and put new products through their paces. Intriguing.