Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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'?"

2 of 117 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Simple explanation by Flexagon · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  2. Re:lowered expectations by Mwongozi · · Score: 3, Informative
    Has there ever been a non-beta version of ICQ?

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