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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'?"
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.
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...
Whoever modded parent 'informative' should be slapped. Repeatedly.
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It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
You go into beta to get a bunch of users to test your software. Beta's are free with the catch being that you have to deal with buggy software. Once the bugs have all been fixed and a saleable product produced, it goes out of beta and into "production". In other words, you have to pay for it.
You're both right ... the definitions vary from project to project. Check out this description of versioning systems. Not done yet, but it made sense when I read it.
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.
"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 that time."
Right from Google's website. The BETA version will only be US business until they get everything how they want it, and then the regular version will include other countries
Yes. The OS X version is currently at 3.4 - non-beta.