Each day it seems there is a new site looking for beta testers. I’m usually one of the first to enter my email address, but as more of these sites crop up mail boxes can get filled with invites and spam. Just today I was invited to a service that I expressed interest in 2 months ago, but did I really want to use it? Sure Steve Rubel had written about it, but did I look into it deeply? Of course not. Who gives much thought to joining a waiting list? The invites may never come, or by the time they do you don’t care anymore. I join so many waiting lists that when I receive invites I’m never sure if I actually joined the wait list. I can confirm one instance where I received an email inviting me to a beta that I never showed interest in. A new form of spam for new services. I’ve even been invited to a beta that never sent the software needed to try it out. What good is that?

With this glut of beta sites, there is a need for a simple way to keep track of them. A way to determine whether you truly wanted to be part of a beta, or whether it is spam. A way to ignore betas that you no longer care about because it has been so long since you joined “the list.” Even a bookmarklet would work, that passed the url to a web site that could date the entry and help you keep track of betas. Or a script that could tell if all that was on a page was one form for entering an email address. First person to create something like this, or make me known of an existing service, gets my adoration.

Sure I could create it, and I very well may if I feel like it, but I’ll let others take a crack at it.