This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark.
Name: UserTesting.com
Quick Pitch: Provides real users who record their screen and voice as they use your website. $29 and 1-hour turn-around.
Genius Idea: If you’re launching a new web app, ideally you’ll have time to organize a focus group and watch real users interact with your software, and tweak it based on the feedback. Unfortunately, that can be both expensive and time consuming. UserTesting.com looks to solve this problem by bringing together users that are willing to do usability tests (for $10 each) with companies that need testing done on their products (who pay $29 per user for the service).
When you request a test, UserTesting claims it can start returning results within an hour from members of its panel, though that can be delayed a bit if you request specific demographics. Nonetheless, the final result seems like a good value: a video that shows how the user interacted with your site (essentially a screen cast) with their voice commentary. The user also submits a written report detailing what the user liked, disliked, or found confusing.
Here’s a sample video for a usability test done on behalf of TripAdvisor:
The idea seems to fill an obvious need, and UserTesting.com has received some fairly high profile endorsements, including Evan Williams of Twitter, as well as executives from Amazon.com, Justin.tv, oDesk, and lots of other prominent websites. Between a great name, a valuable service, and lots of success stories, UserTesting.com seems like a winner.
Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark
BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.
Entrepreneurs can take advantage of the Azure Services platform for their website hosting and storage needs. Microsoft recently announced the “new CloudApp()” contest – use the Azure Services Platform for hosting your .NET or PHP app, and you could be the lucky winner of a USD 5000* (please see website for official rules and guidelines).”
Reviews: PHP, TwitterTags: usability, usability testing
Social activity aggregator 
Google Blog Search has 
Ideally, your brand has the same name across all of the social sites you use, and, it matches your domain name (for example, we’re mashable.com, 
Not to be confused with the first music video about the iPhone 3GS (”
There’s a growing fascination with the so called “real-time Web,” with 
Ever have one of those conversations that culminates in someone saying “I’d give you $20 to _____”? That’s the premise of a new site PayPal has launched: 
A few weeks ago, 
As we reported earlier today, Facebook has announced some 
).
Another big name in print media has bit the dust. Vibe Magazine, which focused on hip hop news and trends, is “closing immediately” according to 
Earlier today, Digg introduced a new system to avoid the problem of two versions of the same story making it to the Digg homepage. 
Twitter has just rolled out an update to the pages where you browse the list of people you’re following and those following you. These pages – which you get to by clicking the following/follower counts on any user profile – now come with a whole lot more information about other Twitter users.
The “Konami Code,” the cheat code that originates in 1980s era video games, is increasingly finding its way into Web sites and services like Facebook, Digg, and Google Reader, that use the famous “up up down down left right left right b a” string of commands to unlock special features or easter eggs. 
Flickr has 
Quickly after rumors started spreading last week that 
Only a few hours into its general release, Mozilla’s Firefox 3.5 is already approaching one million downloads. As of 1:22ET, 
In what may be some of the worst cell phone etiquette ever recorded, President Obama had a speech interrupted by a reporter’s ringtone yesterday. 
Some folks will love this, while others will probably think it’s a sign of the impending Twitter apocalypse. Facebook-style pokes have arrived on Twitter, by way of a new service called 
It’s been a tough week for celebrities and their fans, as we’ve lost Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon, and Billy Mays. Last night, I 
It’s been nearly a year since Facebook 
Steve Jobs is officially back to work today, according to Apple spokespeople. “Officially” is the key word here, as the “unofficial” return of Jobs from a liver transplant came last week, when the Apple founder was 
Back in March, when former 
Web-based image editor 
A new week, and a new scam to attempt to steal our social networking passwords is underway. Today, the target is Twitter, and the scam involves fake Twitter blogs. 
Michael Jackson, one of the biggest pop icons in modern history, has 
Earlier this year, Pizza Hut 
Google Voice, the company’s service for managing your various phone lines, is finally opening up to more people. Starting today, the company is 
It’s no mystery that despite its user-generated content roots, much of the most popular content on YouTube is professionally produced. Movie trailers are no exception, and now the world’s top video sharing site has 
Recently, we explored why Facebook and other social networks are still serving such 
Give Microsoft some credit: they quickly took note of the campaign to “
Ashton Kutcher might be the only Twitter user with 
Twitter has been all over the mainstream press (moreso than usual) over the past couple weeks because of i
President Obama’s inauguration was a huge event online. Much of the traffic went to CNN, and specifically to its 
Following in the footsteps of 
We’ve been covering the ongoing meltdown at MySpace from a variety of angles, including last week’s 
TweetDeck might have the lead when it comes to Twitter Desktop app users, but is it also the top application when put through usability testing? 
Last week, 
We expected that President Obama might use the enormous 
Over the weekend, we learned that 
Typically celebrity blogger Perez Hilton reports news of other celebrities on his infamous Hollywood gossip blog. But when it comes to telling the world about an incident involving himself, Hilton’s medium of choice was Twitter, which has lead to some bizarre fallout.
Last weekend, the Twitter chatter about CNN’s relatively slow reaction to the then developing story in Iran (dubbed 
If you use Twitter and BlackBerry, it’s easy to be envious of iPhone owners, since they have so many options when it comes to Twitter applications. TwitterBerry is probably the best known app for BlackBerry users, but it’s by no means as feature packed as many of the iPhone options like 
We know that Google has been heavily promoting their web browser – Google Chrome – going so far as to buy 
Earlier this afternoon, The White House hosted a “Stakeholder Meeting with Physicians” as part of the ongoing debate over healthcare policy. While this comes at an interesting time politically, it also marked another significant social media experiment from the Obama administration: live Facebook chat.
My Facebook inbox has become rather unwieldy of late. Between messages from friends, groups, and events, more often than not I simply “mark all as read” or ignore the feature altogether. 
If you use a Twitter client like 
Back in April, when we compared the then new 
As we reported over the weekend, Twitter is 
As we reported on Friday night, Facebook users 
Remember 
Last year, we shared 
Wolfram Alpha is going mobile. The brainy search engine has added an iPhone optimized interface that lets you conduct queries and browse some of Wolfram’s other main features, like sample inputs and its “visual gallery of examples.”
We’ve already written a lot about the money that Microsoft is spending on advertising to promote its new search engine – 
YouTube has just added a small feature with big implications: the ability to link your 
Yesterday, we noted that “Web 2.0” had been recognized as the “
WordPress has 
KFC has put a lot of marketing muscle behind their new “Kentucky Grilled Chicken,” most notably with the free meal giveaway by Oprah. While that campaign generated enormous online buzz – some of it rather unfavorable as stores refused to honor the coupons – the chicken chain is now turning its attention to social media.
Words from the tech vernacular finding their way into common language – and ultimately the dictionary – isn’t a new phenomenon. “Blog” was Merriam-Webster’s “
After two years under the CBS umbrella, the founders of music discovery service Last.fm are leaving the company. The team announced their departure in a 
Conan O’Brien is apparently keen on making Twitter a part of The Tonight Show – at least in a satirical kind of way. Tuesday night’s episode saw the return of the “
StumbleUpon has just released a private beta for their own URL shortener – 
Over the past few months, Meebo has added the ability for users of its website to chat with friends on 
IZEA, the company formerly known as Pay Per Post that pays bloggers to write about products, is moving into the realm of Twitter. According to AdWeek, Izea is 
Earlier in the week, we shared some rather impressive numbers from Justin.tv from the company’s 
Golf legend Arnold Palmer turns 80 later this year, and to celebrate, the Untied States Golf Association (USGA) is putting together one of the more elaborate virtual birthday celebrations we’ve seen to-date: 
Google’s street-level mapping imagery – called Street View – can at times be useful if you want to see what a place you’re trying to find looks like. However, if you’ve ever wanted to explore beyond a snapshot of a location, you’ve likely found the user experience fairly cumbersome, if not downright unusable at times. 
While an 
Last week, we discussed 
Recently, we’ve covered a variety of social media campaigns that utilize Facebook Pages as their primary marketing vehicle (see: 
Justin.tv seems to be a bit of an open book lately when it comes to their stats. Last week, for example, they shared somewhat dubious numbers which suggested that their users 
Last week, we opined that portable identity services like Facebook Connect would be a perfect fit for the next generation of online games (specifically, the new 
With “trending topics” now a part of the Twitter interface, marketers and publishers (and unfortunately 
Earlier this week, Twitter users were up in arms over the notion of a Twitter TV show (heck, Ashton even 
Part of Electronic Arts’ success has been due to a legion of devoted fans who buy a new version of popular titles like Madden and NBA Live every year. However, that audience might be waning, as EA’s growth has slowed in recent times for a number of reasons, one of them being competition from online gaming. 
As we reported this morning, Google is expecting a 
