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Google Considers Taking Beta Tag Off Gmail
Barence writes "Google is considering removing the beta tag from Gmail — and other online services — a mere five years after it was first launched. Google has become somewhat synonymous with seemingly endless beta cycles. Many of the company's most famous services, including Gmail, Docs, and Calendar all still carry the beta tag. Google now admits the eternal beta cycles could be damaging consumer and business confidence in its online apps. 'It's a minor annoyance and something you'll see addressed in the not-too-distant future.'"
That'll make things better!
It's a minor annoyance and something you'll see addressed in the not-too-distant future.
3000 A.D. Sha la la
"I don't have to think. I only have to do it. The results are always perfect, but that's old news." - Meat Puppets
But...but...is it READY?!
Because i still find it annoying to search for porn with my specific fetish.
(you heard me)
My -1 Troll is actually a +1 funny. And my -1 flame is actually a +1 insightfull.
I believe more people probably know what Google means then they know what Beta means. Google has become the biggest of the BIG companies (without imploding or needing government bailout). 8 to 1 searchers use Google over Microsoft Search Engine, so what Google's 'beta' is, is really what the industry standard has become.
Hellmightfreezeover.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Gmail - Acceptance Testing.
Do you or your partner snore? - Visit www.snoring.com.au
There's no way GMail is ready for "release."
Put a Beta Tag on Slashdot
(in case you can't read the comment titles)
Jesus. Why does Slashdot always look totally broken?
Wait? "BETA" is the NEW industry standard?
I thought releasing shoddy untested products allways was the industry standard.
My -1 Troll is actually a +1 funny. And my -1 flame is actually a +1 insightfull.
GMail Release Candidate 1.
My university was transitioning their mail back end to google shortly after I left. Good to know that they are considering it good enough to not be beta anymore.
Oh, no! Beta!
But that's the irony! Some (not all) of Google's Beta products are miles better than other "production" products. Go figure.
How can Google be taken seriously in an enterprise environment if their most stable and successful offshoot project takes 5 years to come out of beta? They should have done this 3 years ago or more. Gmail has been sufficiently stable all this time, yet this self-deprecating beta designation has constantly served as an admission of being non-committal to SLA.
They're just moving it to Gamma.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
GMail -- RC1
Google introduces 'charlie' status for online services. More at 11.
The article is talking about gmail. Google search hasn't been in beta for quite awhile.
Sorry about the mess.
...is one of those early 90s construction signs.
mmmm...forbidden donut
Sorry, but this is not a real big deal outside of communities like /.
Beta is just another one of 'those fancy tech terms' for most folks, so regardless of whether or not Gmail is beta or not in beta millions of people will still use it as their primary mail service.
i know gmail works quite well. but sometimes in firefox, when you click forward the thing gets stuck at 'loading rich text'. this happens at random and also on new ubuntu, opensuse installs. also, google calendar gets stuck sometimes on some firefox installs. seems to me the 'beta' tag is there for a reason.
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
I thought that was just its name...
At last count (last fall) almost half of Google apps were labeled beta, so it's not just a few they're talking about. At that time, Google offered a convoluted explanation for the practice that included: "We believe beta has a different meaning when applied to applications on the Web, where people expect continual improvements in a product." More here:
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/33131
Step 1: Stop answering bug reports
Step 2: Use GIMP to remove "beta" from all header pics
Step 3: ????
Step 4: Profit!
Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling a pig in the mud. After a while, you realize the engineer enjoys it.
Docs has been having problems recently with syncing. The biggest caveat of the whole cloud concept is "What do you do if you lose your connection to the cloud?" (Ok, one of the big caveats. The other is not having access to your data. If Microsoft went under tomorrow, your SQL Server won't disappear. Office will still run on the desktop. If a cloud company goes under, you may have a backup of the data from the app but who will be hosting it? They had code escrow back in the day, the company that wrote your app goes under, the source code is held in escrow and will be released to you at that time. You can hire people to perform maintenance.) Really, big business has seen this problem for decades. When offices are connected to centralized servers over frame relay and there's nothing at the remote locations but dumb terminals, losing the connection leaves you just as dead in the water as losing your internet today. Google's answer was the local cache. It works great for gmail, I can see them saying it's no longer beta.
The problem I've encountered with docs is that "docs list" window as they call it is having trouble syncing. You create a document on one computer, it should be visible on the other within a few minutes. You can see it if you do a page refresh. The problem is the local copy doesn't sync automatically anymore. You can make that happen by syncing manually or by opening the file up while connected to the net -- it will display the old version and then flash over to the new one as it downloads.
The problem arises when you think you're synced up and open an older document and start working on it. You last worked on it on Computer A yesterday. Computer B's copy is from four days ago. If you're away from a net connection when you open it on Computer B, you won't get a refresh and the automatic refresh you thought already happened didn't. So when you get back home you fire up Computer B so you can make sure it syncs back to the cloud, it will now try to reconcile two different versions. If you were working in separate parts of the document, you might get lucky. if any of your changes were made to the same paragraph, last edit wins.
These sorts of problems will be esoteric to the typical end user. I can see what's going on because I'm geeky. The end user is just going to get upset because something that "just works" no longer does.
You can't really complain about getting this kind of functionality for free but people will really start bitching if they have to pay for it.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
anyone remember how ridiculously long ICQ was in "beta"? I think it spanned the enture duration it was created till AOL bought out Mirablis.
in fact, i am a recent ie convert to google chrome, for many reasons, but not least of which was the fact that slashdot looked like ass in ie
i thought it was some linux tribe thumb in the eye to microsoft: we're purposely going to make ie users suffer. ok, fine, i understand the passion to sabotage. but apparently the linux tribe hates google/webkit just as much, as the most glaring page display errors (weird dead white space in prominent spots, disappearing titles) are the same in chrome. cross browser support is one thing, but cross browser page rendering bug support is quite the accomplishment!
slashdot: fix your damn css. or at least enable old school html only. we are mostly hard core techies here, we can handle it, we don't need myspace eyecandy. please lose your insecurity over ajaxy digg stealing your show. we hate digg. but we don't want to hate slashdot too, for the sake of some really, really easy javascript/ css fixes
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Does that mean there won't be any more improvements on gmail? That they are moving on to other things? Or will they start charging now?
If it's really a beta product, they should dump all the user data before they take it to production. After all, it is just test data. No one in their right mind would be using a beta product as their primary email provider, right?
all the companies that put "Beta" after the name of their services to look as cool as Google will remove it?
Yay! Finally we are in the release candidate stage! Another 5 years we may see ver 0.1 build 3!
Btw, iPhone support on slashdot sucks! My 5th time trying to post this comment
This is just a ploy to prevent us from talking about Google Omega products. Do no evil, indeed. Perfect evil is indistinguishable from Perfect Good. We all know that their Omega products are perfectly ok and nothing to worry about
rewriting history since 2109
further proof that they are in-fact the antithesis of Microsoft.
Collector's Edition
I don't understand this article. I might of missed it, but from my reading the article clearly has not done is background checking. The article clearly mentions that chrome is out of beta, but gmail which is five years old is not, but I did not see it point out that one is a local application but gmail, and docs are online applications. A year ago slashdot posted an article on Google's view of online beta's. The basic view was that since online applications change at a higher rate to traditional applications they are never out of the beta phase and always capable of testing new content. I admit the company may need to come up with a new word to describe such a view like transitional, but I do not believe its entirely wrong. http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/25/1235216&from=rss http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/33131 Given this view its only natural that Chrome go through traditional version why gmail and other services do not. These articles also always fail to mention labs.google.com which is really where the company keeps its Alpha and Beta releases before they want them to go entirely public along with the very extended invitational phase that gmail went through.
Momento Mori
Leaving beta as a part of the name of a given service well beyond the normal limit was a marketing ploy. It generated lots of press and ardent discussion. The tact has run its course. They're removing it as another marketing ploy. That will generate another wave of press and ardent discussion. Ho hum.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
I'm looking over the wall, and they're looking at me!
And it will be the first production software release ever, which is actually production quality.
Most software's actual beta cycle starts with the production release and what most call beta is actually a slightly cleaned up alpha.
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
that works ;-)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Oops. Entirely unrelated to the original post.
You're not doing it right. Labels are far superior to folders.
Besides this new "Wolfram" search thing is still in Alpha!
They upgrade it to the Gamma release version.
This is the first of the three signs that will announce His coming. Duke Nukem (not) Forever!!!!!
When my Karma level reaches 0 I feel in piece with the Universe
Government bailouts???
Ok. The successes of the big three in the US FAR OUTWEIGH those of Google. In their development, they defined America and the world.
You can't say that Google is great because it didn't implode over a little recession.
The big three didn't need bailouts during the great depression.
Yes they're floundering now. But that's partly due to their past successes which lead to a bloated company, high pensions, large salaries, and many many different models.
For great justice, take off every tag.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
i have complaints about all browsers, and i'll always root about and try new ones, looking for that perfect browser that doesn't exist. i have no fixed interest in or allegiance to chrome
currently i'm feeling chrome more than firefox only because it has more... chrome. little eye candy and user interface tweaks i like, like resizable textboxes, highlighting of current input, expansive screen real estate, fast tabbing
i don't like the fact chrome doesn't have a drop down history of urls like firefox or ie. but right now chrome's "chrome" has seduced me, temporarily at best
i'll be raving about opera next month ;-P
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
...which is why the first thing I do when I connect is click the "HTML for slow connections" link.
Which is silly, because I don't consider my cable or business connections very slow. In fact, most websites load just fine. Gmail simply...well, let's put it this way: By the time I get the gmail interface up, I will have already checked my personal e-mail on another machine using mutt.
Why does Google believe we want all the "enhanced" interface that really does nothing to enhance the interface?
As long as they'll have an extra "beta" tag lying around ready for use, why don't they slap it onto their local business listing robots. If you represent an organization and need to change your listing(s)(s)(s)(s), it can be a disaster. Gmail FTW.
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All Beta jokes aside, Google is warping (eroding) the definition of beta. GMail left beta when invitations were no longer needed to get an account. Even then, they were stretching the meaning.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
I expect continual improvements in any product that isn't dead. Web-based or otherwise. Beta just means it's not quite ready for serious use yet. Though Google and some OSS software has had very good "betas" for years.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
What is that whooshing sound I hear?