Mo' Beta Testing Blues

theodp writes "Wired picks up on the observation made by Jason Fried that more and more sites and tools are launching and remaining in 'beta' mode. Prominent sites like Google News, A9, Froogle, Friendster, Tribe, and Orkut all sport 'Beta' disclaimers. Is this to get users to do the testing, a subtle way of saying 'don't expect support', or simply a marketing ploy to generate buzz by making users feel 'exclusive'?"

Beta Stuff

[DarkHelmet]

Is this to get users to do the testing, a subtle way of saying 'don't expect support', or simply a marketing ploy to generate buzz by making users feel 'exclusive'?"

Maybe it signifies, like in the case of my site Slashster [slashster.com], that it actually IS in alpha.

The problem, I think, is what companies consider to be alpha / beta / whatnot. Alpha is when a product is still in development / testing. Beta is when the project is feature complete, and all that's going on is bugfixing.

Sites like Friendster, Tribes, Orkut, Slashster, do not have a concrete definition of "complete". There's always more functionality to add, always stuff to incorperate, and is ever-evolving. Therefore, it never gets out of alpha / beta phase.

As for my site, as long as there's no true commercial interest within my work, it will most likely stay as "alpha." Not to say that people shouldn't expect support, but rather that they shouldn't expect things to necessarily work either ;)

Re:Beta Stuff

[SamBeckett]

As for my site, as long as there's no true commercial interest within my work, it will most likely stay as "alpha." Not to say that people shouldn't expect support, but rather that they shouldn't expect things to necessarily work either ;)

Maybe not "commerical interest", but nonetheless you are trying to get some. I haxxored your site and found the following psuedo-SQL code:

SELECT phone_number FROM users WHERE sex='F';

FOR EACH phone_number DIAL phone_number AND BREATHE HEAVILY;

Re:Beta Stuff

[DarkHelmet]

Phone number input for females only! Holy crap, that's a good idea!

Re:Beta Stuff

[PsiPsiStar]

Whoever modded parent 'informative' should be slapped. Repeatedly.

Re:Beta Stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah and we all know those cross dressers are messing with our database memory needs!
because of them we can't store the gender as bool

Re:Beta Stuff

[djcapelis]

Yes we can, Actual Good Old Born As Female Female, true or false... I fail to see how it cannot be stored with a BOOL.

Oh... did you mean you wanted to store more about their gender than whether they're dateable or not?

Re:Beta Stuff

[No. 24601]

The problem, I think, is what companies consider to be alpha / beta / whatnot. Alpha is when a product is still in development / testing. Beta is when the project is feature complete, and all that's going on is bugfixing.

Actually, the strict defenitions of alpha and beta testing are internal (developer) and external (customer) testing, respectively, prior to release of a product.

Re:Beta Stuff

[magefile]

You're both right ... the definitions vary from project to project. Check out this description of versioning systems [gose.org]. Not done yet, but it made sense when I read it.

Re:Beta Stuff

[otisg]

I kind of agree with this. Examples given are all web applications. Web applications tend to be easier to deploy (hm...do they?) than desktop apps, so new releases are pushed to live sites more frequently. Even if changes are small, there is always a change some forgotten bit got changed, and the whole service suffers. Hence, the beta is permanent, since releases are continous.

heh, my Simpy (sig) is in..... BETA, too :)

Information On Why Froogle Is Beta

[Anonymous Coward]

"There are a few conditions and limitations you should know about if you're thinking of providing a feed to Froogle. This beta release of Froogle only supports U.S. online stores with English-language websites and products priced in U.S. dollars. While we plan to offer support for multiple languages and currencies in the future, we want to be sure Froogle offers the best possible experience to users and merchants before we expand the service. We will not be accepting feeds from international merchants until

Re:Beta Stuff

[amichail]

I believe that alpha/beta applications can be "stabilized" by users. See the Stabilizer project for buggy GUI applications: http://stabilizer.sf.net [sf.net]. Perhaps something similar can be done for buggy web sites.

Simple explanation

[rd4tech]

It's quite simple actually:
today you have to develop things fast
faster development = more bugs
beta version= decreased liability (because of the bugs) while still collecting profits/'name-building'/etc

For example Google API is in a 'forewer beta', they state: "The Google Web APIs service is currently in beta form and has not been fully tested or debugged. Accordingly, Google disclaims any responsibility for any harm resulting from your use of Google Web APIs. "

Imagine if a bridge building company would say something like this. It's plain scary. I mean, get some IT marketing guy and he'll find a way how 'the drivers should do the initial bridge testing'.

What's scary is that even the free projects lately are starting be quite-Beta-excusable for the bugs. Which is bad, since, as we all know, there isn't any valid excuse for having bugs :) (in the software I mean :) )

Now, the thing to do is to patent this Beta concept for selling out half baked potatos for the full price, if you live in Europe that is.

The Bridge Analogy

[pheared]

But whether Google's API works or not is simply an annoyance. The bridge can kill people (or try to teach them to fly, depending on how you look at it).

You need to save that analogy for the air-traffic control and space shuttle software. Which, by the way, is not released in beta form.

Re:The Bridge Analogy

[Anonymous Coward]

Time for me to go a/c.

Some new air-traffic control software went live in the Munich area just before christmas. The controllers who had to use it went bananas and their protests made German television.

One bug I remember: when planes land they can no longer be tracked by radar - doh - surprise! The software sometimes had them heading off the radar screen at mach 2.

Another: the system died and had to be rebooted. When it came back up again, all aircraft were in the system twice. One controller threatene

Re:The Bridge Analogy

[M1FCJ]

Ah, traffic control. They are messing with the traffic control system in UK. There was a public outcry when the bugs became public.

Most of these bugs seems to be "fixable". The problem with Traffic Control systems is they rarely change, making the operators pretty aggressive towards the new features or options. Developing user-driven software is quite simple. For example we are developing a software which replaces our customer's old software. Instead of getting rid of annoying feature, il-logic-flow within

Re:Simple explanation

[rzuwik]

well, there used to be a custom (there still is?) that a bridge would be beta tested by a line of trucks filled with sand, with the main engineer sitting _under_ the bridge.

how's that for developer responsibility? :)

Re:Simple explanation

[rd4tech]

I heard of this also, apparently it was the main thing when one friend of mine was designing bridges and doing feasibility testing. I don't know if they are still doing it nowdays. And, she told me that they don't put the average expected weight overhead, but they do severe overloading. She said that it's quite scary to see the bridge actually shifting in the air above you and waving left and right :))

Re:Simple explanation

[Flexagon]

today... beta version= decreased liability (because of the bugs) while still collecting profits/'name-building'/etc

Exactly, on the sentiment, but this is hardly new, and hardly just software. I've seen plenty of microprocessor manuals printed with "PRELIMINARY INFORMATION" long after the procesors were shipping and built into production systems. In the few cases I was able to get an authoritative reason, it was closely related to CYA (such as not wanting to be legally held to the specification if a sufficiently nasty bug in was discovered after shipment). And when this wasn't enough, some then added the "Do not use in life-support applications" disclaimers.

Re:Simple explanation

[empaler]

Yeah, I remember the last page of my Game Boy (original grey monochrome brick), where they'd listed the specs. Above (or below, whatever), it then stated something like "Any of these can change without notice at any time". Not very endearing.

Re:Simple explanation

[torinth]

Which is bad, since, as we all know, there isn't any valid excuse for having bugs :) (in the software I mean :) )

Not true. Bugs are a resource problem. Take a fixed team of developers and a fixed time for development and you have to sacrific either stability, security, or features.

Desktop and most corporate customers demand features far more than they demand stability. It's a fact of life. Everybody complained about bugs in the 9x branch of Windows, but stayed with it because of the exclusive features (including market penetration).

The solution is to supply more resources, which means that your product must involve more developers, and/or take more time. So there's a plenty good excuse: nobody wants to wait for progress in software.

For the few markets that do, like some financial and government projects, stability is very important, and so these projects take a hell of a lot more time and money to develop.

Re:Simple explanation

[rd4tech]

I agree, but that standpoint does not changes the annoying fact that you have to deal with bugs in the software as a desktop user, not to mention as a developer. For example, I had a chance to work on a Delphi project. Pure nightmare, the API provided by borland are sometimes buggy as hell, up to the extend that functions for operating on string variables sometimes work sometimes don't. (We never figured out what triggered that.) There are memory leaks everywhere too. Switching from version 6 to version 7 s

Re:Simple explanation

[IncohereD]

See...the problem here is not only did you continue to use the software, you paid to upgrade anybody even though the bugs weren't fixed. What incentive does this give a company (Borland), to change?

On the other hand, I've used CBuilderX...and it seems vast improvement in usuability. I don't know about compiler bugs, but the pro version comes with about 300 other compilers as well, it would seem. :)

Re:Simple explanation

[rd4tech]

To quote their tech support: "Well sure, but all the bug fixes are available for 800$US." We paid because they claimed fixes and the main bugs we found still weren't fixed.
If GM was designing cars as software ... :)))

Re:Simple explanation

[IncohereD]

That's when you demand a refund. Or at least only buy one and test it first.

Re:Simple explanation

[cooldev]

You're on the right track, but it's more than that:

1) Risk management. Beta software is a way to manage the risks of rolling out a piece of software or a web site. Does the software have a subtle bug that can't be reproduced in the lab? Does the web site have unexpected scalability problems? Software can get deployed very quickly, and once the floodgates are open it can be tricky to fix these types of issues.

2) Customer feedback. Do the customers love the software but find a few important features awkward? Usability testing and focus groups will discover some issues, but others may require real customers to use the software for an extended period of time.

3) Early availability. The best software isn't software that has "no bugs", it's the software that's good enough and released soon enough to start being useful (and, potentially, grab market share). Beta versions make the software available sooner than normal, with the caveat that the customer will run into more bugs. The customer can decide whether this tradeoff is worth it.

(Clearly, this isn't appropriate for all types of software.)

4) Partner integration. Massive software rollouts, such as a new operating system or service pack, require an extended beta testing period in order to give partners time to prepare for and take advantage of the changes.

For example, XP SP2 contains many security enhancements that can break some software and web sites. These are impossible for Microsoft to fix on their end, so the betas give vendors some time to address the problems. Similarly, Longhorn adds a significant amount of functionality to the Windows platform, so providing early access (not even beta yet!) gives partners time to learn the new technology and start creating products that take advantage of it.

5) Customer integration. Complex software systems require time to plan, evaluate, and learn. Beta releases give customers additional time to figure out how (and whether) the software will fit into their existing infrastructure. It also gives them time to learn the new software and create training materials, procedures, etc. for the people that need it.

No Risk

[patdabiker]

If something goes wrong, you can't blame the site. It's beta. If the product sucks, it shouldn't (theoretically) be able to tarnish the name of a great such as Google. Takes all the risk out of it.

I miss

[Phosphor3k]

The test server that was up before slashdot switched.

Brak was his name, wasn't it? Oh, we had some good times together. Crazy stories, everyone had mod points. Ah yes, that was the day.

/me sniffs

It's not limited to those.

[Bruha]

MMORPG's by far have been the most beta quality software I've ever had the experience to pay and test at the same time. I have played every MMO launched since Asheron's call as part of working for warcry news network and I can tell you you're always playing beta quality code.

To be fair it may just be more of a "work in progress" than beta but still you have to live with the bugs or move onto another game which will be in the same situation.

eBay

[eviljolly]

I opted into the "new and improved" eBay 2.0. There was a way to opt out at first, but ebay took that option away and locked it's users into using eBay 2.0. eBay then offered "workshops" to let users give their input, and after reading pages and pages of people screaming they want to be able to switch back to the older version, they just seemed to ignore them and answer questions related to how they could improve the atrocious interface of their new monster. Ebay seemed to lose a few buyers, and even some of their power-sellers because they would not give us back the link to opt out of eBay 2.0. So now I'm stuck with eBay 2.0, with no way to opt out. All I can say is that I'm glad I don't sell much because I heard it can be a pain in the ass now. :)

More information about eBay's workshops can be found at....
http://www2.ebay.com/aw/marketing.shtml

Re:eBay

[xDCDx]

I tried the 2.0 interface too and opted out instantly. Now I'm stuck with it like you. I think it's the default interface now, and the old one is gone for good. Actually when you get used to it, it's not that bad.

Anyway, I actually replied to tell that eBay/PayPal sucks as a company. They don't care for the users, their eBay and PayPal fees are quite high, they do not stop increasing the profit volume and they do not make fees cheaper.

I sometimes buy stuff in eBay, and some guy ripped me off. I bought

good for them

[lawngnome]

using the term "beta" gives a clear impression that everything is mostly there, but there is more work to be done.

I would much perfer a site say they are beta instead of putting out non working features.

Re:good for them

[xgamer04]

I would much perfer a site say they are beta instead of putting out non working features.

I'm going to send this comment to microsoft...

Re:good for them

[ergo98]

gives a clear impression that everything is mostly there, but there is more work to be done

In software one could perpetually claim that there is "work to be done" (`maybe emacs could use a object model of a kitchen sink..') which is why the standard is that you choose a feature-set for a release, go through the various refinement steps of alpha/beta/rc, and then release. You're then free to move to the next version number.

What we're seeing instead is a large number of organizations using "beta" as a rath

So, what's new?

[InternationalCow]

This is the era following "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", guys. Remember "release early and release often"? Of course they are soliciting users as beta testers. Microsoft does that all the time. And of course it is a marketing ploy. May I suggest a third option: compare this to the way that Doom was first released. This way of releasing is not only meant to make people feel exclusive or valued, it is also a way of gaining mind share (==market share) before the actual product is even released. Wake up, this

Let me suggest

[Prince Vegeta SSJ4]

Is this to get users to do the testing, a subtle way of saying 'don't expect support', or simply a marketing ploy to generate buzz by making users feel 'exclusive'?" Let's do a Beta test to see if we can get a handle on how to better Beta Test.

'Beta' Has Become Fashionable

[osewa77]

It used to be that 'beta' signified 'buggy', then the 'speed of the internet' age came. And when something that gives companies more excuses for releasing buggy software to the public at large becomes fashionable, well, they had better just take advantage of it!

nothing fashionable about database errors

[jswhiting]

or maybe it's like the 80s thing with the ripped jeans... "c'mon mom, database errors are cool. the site isn't supposed to work... you just don't get it."

These sites are free.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not paying for these sites, so what do you expect?

Open source software does this a lot as well. And it touches stuff that I use right now: the Scons build system is stuck at version 0.95. Mozilla Thunderbird is at version 0.6. Mozilla Firefox is at 0.8. Does this mean that there's anything glaringly wrong about the functionality that they provide? No. It means that there may be a couple of rough edges and that work is still ongoing to finish less important features and to polish up the project. If they were boxed products on the shelf I'd be upset, but since I paid a total of $0 - and they work for me - I don't care what the version number is.

Anyway, I think this is a reflection of the development model more than anything else. Commercial software tends to have a "really big design up front", followed by a bunch of milestones to implement. Open source software (and web-based applications like Google) tend to be more organic. More a work of sculpting one feature at a time than a messy work of planned burocracy. The features that are important tend to be implemented first. And given that the core 10% of most software's features is used 90% of the time - this isn't a problem to most users.

Damned Firefox crashing all the time

[empaler]

after I've installed the newest version... and of course I'm too lazy to go back a version or fetch a nightly ;)
(For me, crashing all the time >= once every three days)

Don't have a crappy Win98 box

[empaler]

I have a crappy WinXP box...

Re:These sites are free.

[zangdesign]

I would say it's also a result of not having a clear goal in mind, as in a defined featureset that determines what will be considered a final release at a given version number. So many projects seem to work toward a set of features, but add in other things in the meantime due to developer whimsy that they never reach the final mark.

What is needed is a clear definition for a given project. Basically, someone saying we're going to implement X-and-such features and anything else can wait for the next release.

lowered expectations

[willCode4Beer.com]

Maybe its the result of a constant demand for newer versions and features.

Many companies (mine included) are under constant pressure to release new products with more features. Often this means that instead of fixing bugs making products better, we are working on the next release.

Perhaps the constant *beta* is a marketing ploy. Tell people its beta and they can't complain when bugs are found. So what if the product never comes out of beta.

Classic example. Has there ever been a non-beta version of ICQ?

Re:lowered expectations

[Mwongozi]

Has there ever been a non-beta version of ICQ?

Yes. The OS X version is currently at 3.4 - non-beta.

Re:lowered expectations

[leerpm]

Has there ever been a non-beta version of ICQ?

Yup, remember 99 alpha? :)

It's overused because everything's in beta

[Stevyn]

When it comes to software, everything's beta in a sence. It's always under development. Since when does a company release software and then just stop development but still consider it active? Operating systems are always being updated and do so automatically. Windows has been in beta since version 1. Linux is in beta and is updated constantly. When I buy a car, it's not beta. It's complete and I don't expect Toyota so fedex me a better steering wheel every month. Software is intangible so by nature it can be updated constantly.

To me, beta always signified that a company was to release the software soon and I could get a "preview" for free. However, as the article points out, marketting departments are trying to alter the definition of the word to suit them. I don't know if this is good or bad, it's just more marketting.

Re:It's overused because everything's in beta

[JamieF]

Beta testing doesn't mean "under development", it means "in a testing phase that includes customers / users". So, saying that software is always in beta because it's always in development is incorrect. Also, software is not always in development. Plenty of software apps are abandoned or put on life support (bug fixes only but no new features) by their owners.

A project that always adds features and fixes bugs at the same time is a very badly managed project. Beta testing is a phase in the software development lifecycle. It's a cycle for a reason: people want features and don't want bugs, but new features introduce new bugs. Every time you add features, you have to text and fix and get it back to a point of stability.

Any decently managed project has a cutoff period where new features are not allowed, so that bugs can be fixed to a point where the team decides that it's OK to release the software. Sometimes this is an ad-hoc decision balancing bug counts with market pressure, and sometimes it's just a threshold of bug counts of various severities. Then, when the release is done, the feature wish list is examined and the feature list for the next release is set.

Open source projects that rely mainly on code donors still do this, but they don't necessarily know exactly what features are going into the next version since they can't predict what code will be donated. Still, the folks managing the project must at some point decide that a release is needed, and work toward a stable, release-worthy point, or else the project will just be an ongoing death march of brokenness and half-completed features.

Beta means that the project team doesn't think that the code is releaseable yet, but it's past the point of feature cutoff, and past the internal testing phase. They're giving the users a chance to beat on the software to find any esoteric bugs that internal testing missed, before telling the world that the software is believed to be stable and correct.

Beta = Better

[DJ Rubbie]

Well, duh, beta is another way to spell 'better', so the 'beta edition' must mean the 'better edition'. Unlike final versions, like how they say it's final, but they didn't say 'better' or 'beta'! =P

Hmm, wait a minute, this piece of beta software I have running seems to be misbehaving...

Icq beta

[bircho]

Icq weren't a site, but stayed a long time in beta (still are?), but it was because Mirabilis was thinking about charge for the service.

Maybe it's some sort of legal move to do anything you want with the service without people complaing...

Re:Icq beta

[DoctorDeath]

ICQ beta versions were usually better than the final version. Sure you ran across a bug now and then but overall it was more user friendly (IMO). I really hated when I had to change to the newest release versions (after a crash or other suitably horrific incident). The beta versions just felt more comfortable to me.

this way

[Sinful_Shirts]

they have a lot more people that can say "well, it worked on my machine!"

if its broken...

[hellmarch]

its beta. Boss: why isn't this done? Employee: uh, its beta. Boss: very good. carry on

Make $5250 Guaranteed!!! All you need is a PayPal account and $25. We'll do the rest. Click here to find out how. [dollarrandomizer.com]

Proper testing nomenclature

[raistphrk]

Too many companies and programmers seem to lack a good understanding of what "beta" software really is, because a lot of software they release as beta-grade is really alpha-grade. While there are fairly extensive breakdowns of the development process [sqatester.com], I think you can basically divide the quality assurance cycle of a product into four main points.

Pre-alpha grade software is software that is only being tested internally. It probably doesn't work at all. Perhaps some modules work, but it'll mostly be broken until later builds.

Alpha-grade software is software with new features that has yet to be tested, perhaps with the exception of some internal testing. As a result, when you participate with in an alpha test for a piece of software, you're getting a bug-ridden product to say the least. Things probably won't work the way they should; the software will probably crash; and to say the very least, that build shouldn't be rolled out onto a production machine.

Beta-grade software is software that is more-or-less finished, but is being released for a wider test to work out any undiscovered bugs from the previous development stages. A beta-grade product should be production ready, but generally you won't want to roll it out until the final release builds are made.

Your post-beta, or gold stage, is really just the final builds of the product. By that time, any of those builds are ready for market, but they may run through a few compilations just to do last-minute checks.

A lot of companies attach the term "beta" on alpha-grade software simply because they think it'll drum up more PR for the product. In reality, they're just giving their customers a load of bull. That being said, I've found a lot of beta products to be incredibly solid. Mozilla and Opera are two great examples. While they may crash occasionally, or I might find a bug or two if I dig really hard, I could see those beta builds being out on the market.

Beta Could Mean Beta

[Darth Cider]

The sites mentioned, as well as Spymac ( first with 1 GB email), exist as proofs of concept with a presumption of falsifiability. There was no way to know beforehand if they'd be viable, no way to test if they'd fail without putting them on the road. This is in contrast to the dotcom burnrate days, when every concept was presumed roadworthy from the moment of conception on a cocktail napkin. Beta is a good thing, it's a sign of maturity (ironically enough).

Another site in beta...

[dylan95]

Add TeacherReviews [teacherreviews.com] to the list.

It's not complete enough to launch, but enough is there to show something to the public.

I labeled it as "Preview" instead of "beta" because most non-techie people don't know what beta means.

Re:Another site in beta...

[raistphrk]

Good to see you're finally back up in action. A lot of students on my campus used TeacherReviews, so we were pretty disappointed when the site went down. Hope things stay on the up and up.

Top ten reasons (beta version)

[PsiPsiStar]

1. Microsoft has made shit the industry standard.

2. Plan and code has been changed to 'guess and check'

3. Companies want to see if somthing will be popular and generate revenue before they put money into making it work.

4. Another way of disclaiming liability.

5. Sounds 'techie.'

6. Peer pressure.

7. People want customers to help with debugging.

8. Change is constant. So is Beta testing.

9. Dotcom crash has scared people. Folks want to 'see the money' as soon as possible.

10. Companies realize that because of revisions to UCITA, enforcement of shrinkwrap liscenses, etc. that they're not going to be held liable for the problems that they cause, above the price a customer has paid for the product which is almost never enough to justify any kind of lawsuit in the first place.

Surrender all privacy to try our beta service!

[Isando]

I have had a couple people invite me to Orkut. I checked it out, but when I got to the sign-up screen and saw the truly horrifying and offensively private questions that were required of me, I backed out. Forget it. If I would never surrender so much private information to some faceless company, how could the fact that it is beta and may be insecure ever have a hope of convincing me?

Re:Surrender all privacy to try our beta service!

[mabinogi]

> truly horrifying and offensively private questions

You mean like Name, Date of Birth, Country or State of origin, and Email address?

You did realise the rest was optional didn't you?
Most fields can be left blank, and most dropdowns have a "no answer" value.

But remember, it _is_ a personal networking site. The whole point of these sites is for people to see whether or not you might interest them by the answers you give to the questions...

Regarding Beta Testing

[nate nice]

Although beta testing is an somewhat important phase in the software and testing life cycle, it is not one you should depend on too heavily. A test plan should be developed after the requirements have been put together and all testing should be executed in each of the phases of the project, being flexible enough to change as possibly new requirements enter the project. Testing of software is usually done poorly and many projects have little focus on the testing process. It's not necessarily the most fun process, but one that is important and should be done by a highly skilled team that is both creative and smart. If your project is relying on beta testing to find a substantial set of errors and defects in your software, your software is probably doomed.

Software engineering really is that, engineering, but it is often not looked at this way. Writing code is the easiest part of it all but many steps and procedures should be used to ensure the highest quality and robustness of software possible. We have way too many under-educated, non-read and undisciplined developers/managers that really need to observe other fields of engineering, such as civil enginering/construction to see what we need to do to make software development of higher quality.

I will now step down from my soap-box.

Orkut

[DavidLeblond]

I'm a member of orkut and trust me, its definately beta. Hardly anything on the site works the first time you use it, it goes down constantly, and I think the interface could use a ton of polish.

Almost as silly as "Under Construction" gifs

[poulbailey]

I don't understand this beta nonsense. Once it's launched, it's launched I'd say. It's fine that Google labels GMail as beta since it's relatively closed at the moment and hasn't had a "proper" launch yet.

Google News, on the other hand, might as well use a stupid animated "Under Construction" gif for their pages, since it seems to be in perpetual beta. The service launched (ie. left the Google Labs) all the way back in September, 2002 [com.com]!

Re:Almost as silly as "Under Construction" gifs

[jdreed1024]

I don't understand this beta nonsense. Once it's launched, it's launched I'd say. It's fine that Google labels GMail as beta since it's relatively closed at the moment and hasn't had a "proper" launch yet.

I really think it's a support issue. Or perhaps users are still having problems, and they haven't ironed everything out yet. It's a way of saying "Look, we think this is useful for a bunch of people, but we can't say nothing will ever go wrong just yet".

I remember when Google bought the DejaNews arch

Umm infrastructure?

[stryck9]

One thing people seem to be forgetting is that each of these site require lots and lots of machines to run them. Until that piece is rock solid, I wouldn't want to take that beta tag off.

R and D, and $

[truesaer]

I can think of a few reasons why some of these seem to be perpetually in beta. First, they make good platforms for research and development. Google news was the first time I can remember them compiling near real-time information from across the internet and displaying it for users. The technology, algorithms, knowledge, and more gained by Google is probably being applied to other areas of the business and they may want to modify whats there in the future to see how it works.

You can say something similar about A9. It extends Google, and adds in-book searching, search history features, the toolbar diary, etc. It is a good place for them to work on features before deploying to the actual Amazon site.

And a major reason why these might just be testbeds is that they generate no revenue. The technologies developed may be useful in their revenue-generating products. Having the public test your stuff is a great way to see how it really works.

no real deploy phase

[runcible]

I think it has a great deal to do with the fact that none of the items mentioned in the list will ever "go gold" as such, and will therefore never really -- which is maybe to say *enforceably* -- go through the feature feeeze/bug fix period that immediately proceeds that event. There's no real financial motivation to ever take it out of beta ( like, say, shipping product ), and there are plenty or reasons - like those mentioned by the poster - not to.

Who cares!

[luugi]

I really don't mind the fact that they call there product BETA. You don't have to download or use BETA software. Why are people complaining? Those products are free.

Be patient and wait for the official release. Pretend the product never got released.

Sometimes it is about roll out speed.

[mjj12]

I suspect that if Google announces that (for instance) gmail is not longer in beta, then they feel they have to offer it to everyone who wants it, which probably means they have millions of users who all want to register it at once, and their servers are suddenly overwhelmed by the demand. As it is, by saying it is in beta they can offer it to a few users at once, and carefully control the speed at which it is rolled out. (Those people who have gmail accounts are being given a certain number of invitations

Best way to test

[prestwich]

However much the designers of something try and test it, there is nothing like throwing a few thousand misguided, ignorant, diverse users (who didn't bother to read the help) at a site/piece of software. Preferably all at once. It's a damn good way of testing something; and hell they're free - so we can hardly complain!

beta is just more honest?

[Vellmont]

This practice of releasing software before it's ready is hardly a new one. What do you think Windows 1.0-3.1 were? 3.11 finally was release quality software, though it still stunk. Apple did the same damn thing with OSX. 10.0 was Alpha quality software at best, with 10.1 being beta quality.

The point is that I don't think companies are releasing software any earlier than they used to, they're just being more honest about the quality of it. Google news still being beta means they can mess around with it and not piss anyone off. The article seems to imply there's something wrong with lowering peoples expectations.

Has ICQ ever come out of beta?

[Halcyon-X]

ICQ has got to be the guiltiest of all. I don't think there was ever a final version!

Crash

[funk_phenomenon]

I use Firefox 0.8 as my browser, and surprisingly when I clicked on the link to the Netscape Beta Browser download link [netscape.com] (on second page of wired article) Firefox crashed. Ahh the joys of beta software.

Google

[BMIComp]

Google always has stuff in beta, while it first comes out. I think it's just their way of saying "this isn't necessarily going to be part of our site for good, we're seeing how this works out, and if you like it, we might end up keeping it". I can remember when google images was in beta. However, even most of these things that google brings out are completely functional while they are in beta. Oh, and they usually have a couple of projects that they're also demoing in the Google Labs [google.com] area.

On the other

Ahead of the game

[rjamestaylor]

So all those circa 1995 websites with the yellow-black color schemes with animated stick figures at work. . .who woulda thought they'd be ahead of their time?!

Re:Fucking Linux Nuts

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot fucking sucks

Make up your mind, will you: does it fuck or does it suck? Unless it's a threesome, you can't do both, you know.

Re:Fucking Linux Nuts

[The Unabageler]

AC + /. + gay penguin = 3some