To Beta or Not To Beta
Tuesday, April 10, 2007 at 09:07PM by Charlie O'Donnell So here's a question...
Voki launches next Wednesday and the question came up... Beta logo or no?
Here are three good reasons for it and three reasons against it, but I'd love to hear your feedback.
For:
- The product is new and sure to have a few bugs and require some immediate changes. The "Beta" label lets people know that they're using the first public version and a few things might need to get updated/fixed... sets expectations.
- The idea of a perpetual beta is a good philosophy, because it implies continuous development.
- Says that we're not done and expect more functionality in the m0nths to come.
Against:
- "Beta" isn't really accurate. If it is public and anyone can use it, its not really your Beta... its your product. Public Beta is a contradiction in terms.
- Beta isn't an excuse and shouldn't be used as one. If something doesn't work, you fix it as soon as possible. You always innovate with new features... and labeling something a beta doesn't get you off the hook for anything, let alone any sympathy from users.
- Beta is sort of a passe terminology... almost a little bit of a cliche now... totally overused by Web 2.0
What say you blog readers? To beta or not to beta?
Reader Comments (8)
the only exception i can think of (related to For #3) is if a service is planning a major upgrade of features a couple of months after roll-out and you really want to emphasize to your audience and to the press "you ain't seen nothin' yet" - in which case, it's not an excuse for bugs but a way to further tease anticipation of the mothership landing (e.g., an online file storage service will soon allow 20X more free storage than any competitor and they want to get people to switch and not go "ho hum, another online storage service provider") - in which case, the fact should be reinforced throughout the site (e.g., in the about section, copy on the home page, etc.) - important thing is to never slap on "beta" without any reinforcement on what's to come when you're out of beta
The reasons to call something beta area is that the functionality itself is going to change in a way that materially affects users of the service. For instance, the 'beta' term would be appropriate for an API that is not yet finalized, to warn developers that it's just for experimenting with, and not to build anything that relies on it yet.
Besides that I have clients who don't like to use anything marked beta. You can miss out on people that way.
We had the same discussion about a month ago so voicing the same thoughts I had then.
For voki - are you asking people to make a commitment and are you extending that commitment back? This means you're protecting their data, you're giving them something that will perform as suggested (not perfectly, just as suggested), that can be relied upon to rather consistently deliver the promise of the product? If all these answers are "yes" then don't worry about a beta - just release and continue to improve.