the new “beta”
I come from primarily an enterprise software and infrastructure background, where “beta” means pre-release, not ready for public consumption, still needs to be tweaked, etc.
Two years ago it was rare you saw an online service launch with the term “beta” attached to the logo or site name. Friendster was the first one I remember, then Gmail*, and now it seems like every site out there that’s been around for less than 6 months is a beta. I’m not sure how I feel about this yet - I have two prevailing thoughts:
1. Launching a new web service and calling it a beta is a cop-out. It just means you don’t fully stand behind your product yet because you had to rush it to market and it’s not sufficiently complete.
2. Websites don’t get incremental versions like desktop or server software all that often, so flagging something new as a beta is a legit and creative way to let the users know it’s still a work in progress, but usable.
As with many things in the online world this might just be a trend and in 6 months some marketeer will come up with a new way to communicate “incomplete and needs more features, but come use it anyway”. Is it happening already?
* If anyone has Google’s definition of Beta I’d like to know if the definition changes based on the application context.
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