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Mo' Beta Testing Blues

Posted by timothy on from the plausible-deniability dept.

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'?"

7 of 117 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Beta Stuff by SamBeckett · · Score: 5, Funny
    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;
  2. I miss by Phosphor3k · · Score: 5, Funny

    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

  3. Re:Beta Stuff by DarkHelmet · · Score: 2, Funny

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

    --
    /^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
  4. nothing fashionable about database errors by jswhiting · · Score: 2, Funny

    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."

  5. Beta = Better by DJ+Rubbie · · Score: 4, Funny

    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...

    --
    Please direct all bug reports to /dev/null
  6. Re:Beta Stuff by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    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

  7. Re:Fucking Linux Nuts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny
    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.