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Weblog:   The Endless Beta
Subject:   Differences in Importance
Date:   2005-10-10 08:54:00
From:   tbridge777
The interesting thing here is that Google and Flickr and other web service people provide quality services, often for free, in exchange for the testing rpocess that they get from the users. They're exploiting (and wisely) the mental denotation of Beta as "not quite done yet" and using that to their advantage.


By my calculations, if you could count Gmail's open launch as 1.0, we're around Gmail 1.2 today. Who knows where we are with Flickr. But web applications don't have version numbers like other products, and they shouldn't be held to the same standards. Because you can change the code of these applications literally at any time, version numbers don't apply to external users. Version numbers were great to delineate to tech support which exact build of the product you were using. However, with the web, it's very, very different.


I don't think it's insulting to use a beta product, even pay for a beta product with extended features (as I do with Flickr), because at the end of the day what matters is how useful the features are to the user. If they're useful to me, I pay for them. Beta, Delta, Gamma, none of that matters to me anymore. If it works well, they could title it in Kanji.

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  • FJ de Kermadec photo Differences in Importance
    2005-10-10 09:45:43  FJ de Kermadec | O'Reilly Blogger [Reply | View]

    Hi!

    First of all, thank you very much for taking the time to post, I really do appreciate it!

    I agree with you that the nature of web services allows for easy silent upgrades and, therefore, makes the use of a solid versioning system seemingly irrelevant. However, modifying and upgrading applications without warning users has potential downsides — as recent issues with many services have shown — and the many synchronization problems that can exist over the Internet — notably because of caching and proxying — do call for solid references.

    I also agree that there is nothing wrong with inviting users to participate in a "Beta" program. What worries me is that some applications seem intent to stay in "Beta" form for a long time, therefore diminishing their writer's responsibility — whether moral or legal. This, in itself, should be kept in mind by the community who wishes to rely on such services.

    FJ
    • Tom Bridge photo Differences in Importance
      2005-10-10 11:41:37  Tom Bridge | O'Reilly Blogger [Reply | View]

      Software makers are not exempt from responsibility here, nor have I found the makers of, say, Flickr, responsible for the length of their beta. I signed up for a service, I paid them for that service, and the service has, 99.9% of the time, lived up to exactly that billing. It's not that I expect less of services I pay for, it's having a degree of tolerance appropriate to the code.

      I pay nothing for Google Maps, or various other web services, how can I expect to have them beholden to me?
      • FJ de Kermadec photo Differences in Importance
        2005-10-12 03:09:20  FJ de Kermadec | O'Reilly Blogger [Reply | View]

        Hi again!

        This may sound very conservative but I consider that any service provider, even if the service is free, has a responsibility to its users. The responsibility may not be legal but, at the very least, it is moral.

        Having a degree of tolerance for a certain code is indeed essential. There is however a fine line between having tolerance (always needed) and accepting issues that should not be. Where we place that line is, obviously, up to us.

        FJ
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