As I sat mulling over some work including a time line for our current game  I logged into gmail like I have done every day for the last god knows how many months. Then it snuck up on me the tiny little “beta” sitting under the word “Google”, and I realised that this thing has been in Beta for quite sometime (Since April 1st 2004 thanks, ironically, to the power of Google). Now by any standards I’m fairly sure this would be considered a long time and whilst I fully understand and appreciate the need to have a testing period, four years plus does seem a little excessive. 

That said though, sticking the term “Beta” on products seems to be an increasingly popular one in web app circles and the difference between the way it’s used here and perhaps in other industries is something worth exploring, perhaps that isn’t fair maybe it’s that Beta’s on the web are becoming increasingly public. To set my stall out, and this comes from my background in video games and a limited amount of web programming back in the day, a Beta to me is a defined step in the milestone process, coming after Alpha (meaning all features must be there in at least some form) and before the release candidate. It comes with a defined start date and a target end date, of course that end date is flexible but it’s designed to give the process some structure, obviously if you Beta period brings the game/product to its knees then you’re clearly going to need to extend it out. However, at some point you do have to iron out all the major bugs and as many minor bugs as you can and release it now no good developer will simply leave the product alone after this point, they’ll continue to improve it and address issues that they couldn’t fix before. 

That’s a Beta, it’s served its purpose to highlight load issues, bug issues, balance issues, hardware issues, etc which you fix and move on. Yet the way it’s used by google certainly seems to differ slightly from the above. It seems much more a case of get something put together so it’s past Alpha (pretty much finished) and throw it up online, then leave it in Beta for ever. My biggest issue with this is that I simply don’t see the point of such a long Beta period unless it’s a result of something significantly going wrong. Focusing on the gmail example. that service has been running since I’ve been using it with almost no problems, certainly no more problems than I’ve seen with full released products yet it continues to run in “Beta mode”. 

Going into a full version doesn’t prevent you from still servicing the customer with regular updates, fixes, new features, etc, it simply goes from version 1 to 1.1, etc. By staying in Beta what are you achieving, are you admitting that you’re never going to be fully prepared for a product to see the light of day? Do you not have enough belief in your product?

I’ve seen some Betas that have clearly decided to cut out the alpha stage and just throw up any old sh*t online, stick the word Beta on it and let it’s users do the work for them. For me that’s the most shocking and horrific insult to your consumers; “we don’t respect you enough to give you a decent product but please suffer through this so we can make money”. However other products are certainly gone through a more worthy Beta period in which they’ve delivered a complete product and are looking for user input to help them refine it. My worry is that it’ll become a growing trend to continue in Beta for all eternity, and not ever deliver. Is it because if it’s in Beta people won’t complain about missing features, or bugs? Is it because being part of a Beta’s cool and gives the product more of an “edge”? Gmail sits as a shining example to me of the eternal Beta, and maybe it’s the only one but still…I just don’t understand it. Maybe it’s because I’ve not been working in an “online” company and it does serve a purpose, I’m simply out dated and consumers feel they’re getting the inside tract on something cool. By all means I love being part of Beta’s for products I really care about, nothing feels better than giving input and helping shape a product so it’s better for everyone, but it doesn’t feel that way with Google Mail it just feels like it doesn’t have a firm direction.

I want to hear what people think though, am I being to harsh on the eternal gmail Beta? Are there other examples of products staying in Beta long past their due?

Products currently in Beta though and worth keeping an eye on (Both to see if they ever leave Beta and because they’re seriously awesome)

Zembly (http://zembly.com) | Rummble (http://www.rummble.com/)