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Why Does Beta Last So Long?
Carl Bialik writes "Noting that Google News has been labeled 'beta' for nearly three years, and Microsoft's antispyware program for nearly a year, the Wall Street Journal looks at why 'beta' lasts so long these days. The article mentions the usefulness of getting the masses to test the product, but also notices another possible reason: 'Betas also have become a marketing device in a fiercely competitive industry, allowing software and Internet firms to release new products or services sooner and cultivate early buzz. Betas, which once had been quietly distributed, are trumpeted in press releases and at news conferences. "I deplore it as a consumer; I admire it as a marketing professional," said Peter Sealey, a marketing professor at the University of California at Berkeley and former chief marketing officer at Coca-Cola Co. "I can't come up with anything else in the entire marketing world where marketers knowingly introduce a flawed or inadequate product [and] it helps grow your user base." '"
The reason people like products released as Betas, is because it's the most honest software companies ever get about their products. It's pretty much as simple as that; Beta implies under-constant-improvement, and even I as a consumer don't mind imperfect software, as long as the company will at least advise me it's been released in Beta - under construction.
seriously, why wouldn't you do this with dedicated gamers AND still charge them money for the xbox?
It allows for the company to release the product and have it utilized by the public, but if something were to break, they still have the cruch of "well, it is in beta" to fall back on.
why 'beta' lasts so long these days
Because companies are being more realistic with project life cycles?
"I can't come up with anything else in the entire marketing world where marketers knowingly introduce a flawed or inadequate product [and] it helps grow your user base." Doesn't this describe the computer industry in general?
Am I open minded towards open source, or closed minded towards closed source?
If a product is labelled as beta, and they have to completely overhaul it or a severe security flaw is found. Any 'damages' can be shrugged off as "This was only a beta, use at your own risk".
~Matt
~Belly
We thought we would finish this sooner... but we didn't.
Eventually we kind of gave up trying, but we're too nice to just take it off the website?
Who would have thought?
Or... my personal favorite:
"Beta" as a kludge to workaround users who don't read disclaimers and get hopping mad when things don't work. I swear that accounts for a big percentage of the people who do this.
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This is a public beta for First Post, and I'd appreciate it if you could report any placement-related or other bugs.
___ In the words of Gen. Douglas McArthur: "I'll be right back."
The thing is, most software that we get is flawed and inadequate in some respect. Labeling the software as being beta reduces people's expectations. Thus when there is a serious flaw, the customer doesn't feel that irritated with it because it was beta. If it was a released official product, then they might have more room to criticize.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
You know, those tools you might work or live with who think that kmowing about and running the 'latest' software is some kind of life goal. Gleefully runnig bug-laden betas crashing their systems and reducing productivity.
I must be some kind of throw-back geek. I won't touch it until it ships. I don't do bug-testing for free...and no...none of these 'betas' are really that interesting anyway.
Blar.
Alphas have to work too hard, plus they have to think too hard all the time. They don't get to laugh and play. And Gammas and Deltas wear those ugly jumpsuits. I'm so glad I'm a Beta! Aren't you glad you're a Beta, too?
Well, there is nothing wrong with Betas, except if their is no real intention of a production/stable release in a reasonable timeframe. Something in Beta for three years should raise questions. The implication is tha by tagging something as Beta, software/service suppliers can absolve themselves of responsibility for defects. This is sort of like an even further erosion of the standard EULA weaknesses regarding bugs and defects. Software that is in Beta indefinitely should be called "abandoned".
How's that Windows XP beta been going? The OS X beta I've been involved with has been pretty good. We're up to 10.4.3b, and I'm confident we'll see an RC before the 10.5 beta comes out. =)
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Drug companies do beta test their drugs. Usually- they pay the recipient to take them.
The point is- you get what you pay for.
Because most programmers are male, and most male programmers have a fear of commit.
Chr0m0Dr0m!C
It's been in beta for nearly 10 years ;)
Part of the reason is that they can reserve the option of making it non-beta in the future and charge for it.
I remember reading an article on Wired a long time ago about why Google News will forever be beta: it's all about money and copyrights. As long as it is beta, Google can claim it makes no profit from Google News. As soon as it gets "released," though, every newspaper with a lawyer will try to shut it down.
Give a man fire, and you warm him for the night. Set a man on fire, and you warm him for the rest of his life.
Betas are indeed helpful to consumers. It allows them to get an early look at a product and guide its final look and feel and feature set. This allows the company to develop a better product and consumers get a product that more suits there needs.
While it's true that using beta software is not for everyone, there are many users who do and make this symbiotic relationship worthwhile. As a software developer for enterprise customers, I see this play out with great success all the time.
10 minutes working on a sig. What a waste.
"I can't come up with anything else in the entire marketing world where marketers knowingly introduce a flawed or inadequate product [and] it helps grow your user base."
Think Sega dreamcast! Sure, it isn't software, but the flaw that shipped with it that allowed you to boot CD-rs was what sold most of those systems
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
What's in a name? that which we call Coke Beta
By any other name would taste as sweet;
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
As for Google News, one reason it remains in beta is that it has no business model. If Google tries to put ads on Google News, the newspapers and magazines whose stories are listed on Google News would probably file lawsuits, alleging that Google is trying to profit from their content. Google's emergence is a threat to the major media outlets that represent much of the content on Google News, and some folks in the news business believe it will remain in beta untilthis problem is settled.
RichM
Data Center Knowledge
But, are they making ENOUGH money from that to cover the cost of creating and maintaining the service? Now, I know that neither you or I can answer that question authoritatively
Perhaps a better way to make my point is that google aren't ready to put their full support team behind the product, so they market it is an "as is" product, and call it "beta" by way of covering their butts.
Well sometimes it is so they don't get sued. Google News has been in beta for 4 years, and the consensus is that it will stay that way for years to come.
From this article:
"The reason: The minute Google News runs paid advertising of any sort it could face a torrent of cease-and-desist letters from the legal departments of newspapers, which would argue that "fair use" doesn't cover lifting headlines and lead paragraphs verbatim from their articles. Other publishers might simply block users originating from Google News, effectively snuffing it out. "
- Superior picture quality and signal-to-noise vs. VHS
- Widespread adoption by studios and professionals (Beta SP)
- Convenient smaller-sized cassette
- Mfr'd and licensed by Sony, a company known for their progressive stance regarding consumer rights.
I still can't figure out how ICQ didn't get a mention in the /. article summary! That's been in beta as long as beta has been around.
Being a programmer, I like participating in my favorite products' forums. Like, I report a bug, and a couple of days later, it's "fixed in CVS". I only have to recompile, and voila.
Anyway, one thing that is very needed, is the frequent release of products (release early, release often), which is why I love looking at the latest beta's of a product.
However, what I wouldn't like, is having to widthstand an awful beta full of bugs, specially if i can't contact the programmer.
And it's even more frustrating if said "beta" is actually a finished product, like this one or this one.
Haven't you guys been frustrated by the stupid MSN window re-scrolling whenever your buddy types something and you haven't finished reading what you missed? It's a nightmare!
This is why I like beta. At least I expect bugs to be present, and I'm ASSURED that, since it's beta, those bugs will be fixed soon.
And beta is also where the newest features are implemented, and I can say "wow! you rock!" I think Beta is the best part of a software development.
So, it depends. Beta, for open source products, is a dream come true. For closed source products, it's a nightmare.
Well... aside from marketing reasons and the like, Beta periods are longer these days because the software is typically more complex as well. You'd like a good beta audience to test your code breadth-wise and depth-wise, which may be difficult given some products (think about Microsoft Office and all the features and combinations of features you'd want tested).
Plus, there's always getting your product out in Beta form to let some air out of competitors' offerings. If you can get your game out in a pretty good beta, for instance, you might curb some of the fever for some other competing game has. Just look at the EQ2 and WoW Beta and release times, they were fighting who would release first to get a lot of initial sales.
Their "BETA" reminds me of the early 90's where you came across sites with the damn "Under Construction" animated GIFs everywhere. All these new web-app betas are nothing more than the new "under construction" signs.
The premise behind a beta is to get the product into the customer's hands to increase the number of testers to improve the product. The OSS model of development uses this as a framework. Although versions are released as "final", it is understood that it can and will be changed quickly if any problems arise. I personally have gotten into several OSS while they where beta and still use them now.
I do find it frustrating when paid-for services are in perpetual beta. If a OSS is broke, I haven't paid anyone any money, and I "could" fix it myself if I wanted.
That's simply not true for technological products.
The first to market is usually not the victor. From PDAs to OSes to MP3 players, it's easy to see that in the consumer technology market, the "first mover advantage" is mythical. It usually takes a second company to come along and learn from the mistakes of the first in order for a new technology segment to take off.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
Whatever bad things you might say about proprietary software, one good thing in terms of reliability is that it's typically statically linked. That means someone who sells a proprietary app can test with a particular version of a library, and then just keep on shipping the app with that version linked in. If a later version of the library comes along that they do want to switch to, they can test it carefully, and then roll it out. But as an OSS programmer, you're at the mercy of your users -- they could install any version of a library, and if it doesn't work right, they consider it to be your fault.
Find free books.
...so I wouldn't think the current trend of long-running beta releases has anything to do with whether or not they're ready for prime time. It sure looks like a lawsuit avoidance tactic to me.
is that off-topic or just [+0.5 mildly interesting] ?
I am a budding (Mac OS X) shareware author, currently running an open beta.
...
I am intending to charge about $35 for my software, but am currently giving away limited duration (three month) licences for free.
Before going public, I ran a closed beta for about three months, with 20 or so users that I recruited from various Mac OS X forums. This helped me eliminate the most egregious and common issues.
My public beta has now been running for about a month - I've had a couple of thousand downloads, and nearly four hundred registered users - mainly finding me through version tracker and macupdate listings.
The quality of the bug reports from my public beta users has generally been fantastic (it may help that I've promised bug reporters free permanent licences) - I have about 24 bugs in my bug tracker, of which 10 are open, and maybe half of these are serious. Generally my public beta users have been far, far more productive than my closed beta users - there are lots of issues that you simply aren't going to hit until you get out to a relatively large number of users, and these bug reports are like gold.
Once I've closed the remaining serious issues, and added one remaining feature, probably early in the new year, then I'll end the public beta, start doing publicity and send the product out for review, and start charging for licenses.
This seems like a very good deal for both sides to me - poossibly even a virtuous circle. Beta users get free early access to the software, but are aware that there may be unresolved issues. They also get a chance to influence the final form of the product - one could look at that in a very cynical way (they're doing the developers work for them), but the impression that I get is that people really appreciate this,
From the developers point of view, the larger public beta base enables a much higher quality final product, which clearly beneficial to both sides