Lili León is the winner of our beta-testing contest! As Carlos mentioned in his post, over 250 people registered for the competition, but Lili won by a unanimous decision. It makes sense, as Lili is a freelance usability consultant with a degree in software engineering. And more importantly, Lili is passionate about web 2.0 projects.

Lili stopped by our offices last week to collect her winnings and to chat with us over cava and cake. She preferred the cash to the Xbox, as she said that her son already has a Play Station. I found Lili to be engaging, intelligent and hilarious. She speaks a mile a minute, and her conversation is usually flavored with humorous and insightful commentaries.

Lili told us that she had dedicated a lot of time to the contest, in part because she was intrigued by vertical search engines and in part because she wanted to grow professionally by applying her skills to innovative technologies. More than anything, Lili was interested in receiving feedback about her work. She said that the chance to collaborate indirectly with Albert Armengol, Joaquim Calaf and Juan Luis Hortelano was also a major part of the reason that she had participated.

It was obvious when we saw her submission that she’d put a thought and effort into it. Her winning beta-testing submission consisted of three elements: i) “simple” objective errors (typos, inconsistent usage of certain terms, etc); ii) usability; and iii) proposing innovative ideas that would create stickiness and help migoa retain its users.

A winning formula indeed!

For the record, I think it’s really cool that a woman won the beta-testing contest.

If you are interested in contacting Lili about helping you with your website, please feel free to send me an email or to contact her directly at nomehagaspensar @ gmail.com.

The other finalists

Juan Sebastián Díaz Caño

Although we didn’t have a chance to meet with them, I’d also like to thank our other two finalists for their excellent submissions:

Juan Sebastián Díaz Caño submitted an excellent review of our site that drew upon his experience as the creative director of an advertising agency called Comecocos Entertainment. His specialities include viral marketing and all of the creative elements of advertising.

If you’d like to get in touch with Juan Sebastián, you can contact him at juan.sebastian @ comecocos.com .

Raúl Andrés

Last but not least, Raul Andres impressed the judges with his proposal that drew upon his experience as an entrepreneur and business consultant. More specifically, in 2004 Juan started an academy that teaches about GNU/Linux, open-source software generally. Juan also serves a consultant to small and medium-sized businesses via a project called mctux://.

You can reach Raul at raul.andres @ mctux.info.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the contest!