uTest Launches Campaign to Educate Tech Execs About In-the-Wild Testing

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - Sep 12, 2011) - TECHCRUNCH DISRUPT 2011 -- In only three years, more than one thousand companies have adopted the idea of crowdsourced software testing, and incorporated it into their in-house QA processes. As a result, the testing of web, mobile and desktop apps under real-world conditions -- using real devices, imperfect connectivity, and live testers -- has matured and become a distinct category all its own: "in-the-wild testing."

Today at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco, uTest, the world's largest marketplace for software testing services, is launching www.InTheWildTesting.com. The web site -- and associated social media channels, including a Twitter profile @inthewildtest -- are intended to educate forward-thinking technology leaders about the necessity, benefits and real use cases of in-the-wild testing.

"Back in 2008, many companies were either intrigued or even skeptical when we launched our crowdsourced testing services," said Matt Johnston, CMO of uTest. "The idea of using a community of professional testers to test outside the firewall was so new and disruptive to the status quo that we had to educate the market. To our delight, most prospects quickly 'got' the value because they'd already been wrestling with the problem of apps performing differently outside the firewall than inside the sterile confines of their QA labs."

Johnston continued, "By 2011, our customer base had more than a thousand companies -- including Google, AOL, Groupon and Tapulous. It was these tech leaders that first named the hidden value of crowdsourced testing: that it extended their testing out 'into the wild,' closer to their users, and helped them launch better products. And that notion of testing that mirrors a company's user base -- in terms of technology, locations and demographics -- is what we've formalized in today's launch of in-the-wild testing."

The Case for In-the-Wild Testing
Adoption of in-the-wild testing continues to grow exponentially due to market factors that include:

• Fragmentation of OS platforms, and devices like smartphones, tablets and connected TVs
• Increasing role of geo-location in personalizing the apps experience
• Exponential permutations of browsers, plug-ins and anti-virus
• Imperfect connectivity (both wi-fi and cellular)
• Increasing consumerization of enterprise mobility policies

Together, these conditions emphasize the need for organizations of all sizes to augment their in-house testing -- both manual and automated -- and test under real-world conditions to ensure their apps are functional, reliable, secure and intuitive when in the hands of users.

About uTest
uTest provides in-the-wild testing services that span the entire software development lifecycle -- including functional, security, load, localization and usability testing. The company's community of more than 40,000 professional testers from 180 countries put web, mobile and desktop applications through their paces by testing on real devices under real-world conditions. Thousands of companies -- from startups to industry-leading brands -- rely on uTest as a critical component of their QA processes for fast, reliable, and cost-effective testing results. More info at http://www.utest.com or http://blog.utest.com