Sep
2007
The never-ending beta
Today was an insane day for writing on the professional blogs (15 pieces in 5 hours for Mashable, and 2 pieces so far for BLORGE) and in all of this I noticed something…
IS EVERY ONE IN “BETA”?!?
What is it with websites being obsessed with being in “beta” mode? Eight of the stories over at Mashable today bluntly stated they were in “beta”, and for the life of me, I can not figure out why this has become the “hot” word in the Internet world. My only theory is that it’s an excuse for any bugs people may find in a site, but just look at Gmail. Three years and it’s still a “beta”?
Beta used to mean that “Hey, we’ve gone through Alpha, we killed the majority of the bugs, we just need a few Beta testers to run it through its paces, and then we can release a Gold Master for production.” Having been a beta tester before, I know these “never-ending betas” are just BS, but it would be nice to see them occasionaly emerge from this self-proclaimed title.
Roy | September 24th, 2007 at 8:50 pm #
Who cares what you call it so long as it is free and works.
Sean P Aune | September 24th, 2007 at 9:06 pm #
Write “… the site is in beta…” a bunch of times, you’ll get it *laugh*
Roy | September 25th, 2007 at 5:36 am #
I still don’t get it.
Sean P Aune | September 25th, 2007 at 10:19 am #
Maybe it’s a writer thing, I’m just sick and tired of writing “beta”!
SeanPAune.com » Blog Archive » Beta Error | October 6th, 2007 at 1:48 pm #
[...] this image to the left? This is what I was talking about the other [...]
SeanPAune.com » Blog Archive » A New Coffee… In Beta | February 29th, 2008 at 3:44 am #
[...] I have mocked the idea of “beta” tests before, and this one is such an obvious gimmick to get bloggers to talk about it, and… wait… aw man! I fell for their obvious marketing gimmick! -sips coffee- Curses. [...]