Sidebar by Eric Gillin
Not the kind of thing I expected to see covered in Esquire but it started a fun conversation between Darren Strange, myself and a PR chap we know about what beta means these days. I have my own views but would love to hear yours...does beta mean the same these days in the Web 2.0 world? Should anyone care? Should enterprises betting their business on this stuff care?
Answers on a postcard....or here in the comments section.
[update] I notice the unofficial Google blog has their own views - "Gmail still has problems with scalability and server errors are still frequent", though the same could be levelled at Live, Blackberry, Salesforce and others over the last month. Should they all add a beta tag as a get of out of jail free card??
It's just a name and shouldn't be taken seriously.
I think the more important question is why does Hotmail not offer POP or IMAP access to it?
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@Michél...Have you tried the Outlook connector?
I use Outlook 2007 to connect to Smartermail Enterprise, RSS feeds, Windows Live, Hotmail, POP...Everything.
At least they don't work in the Linux way - most software doesn't even reach 1!
0.3.27 as the version number - I much prefer 'Beta'.
Having said that 'Beta' implies that you will eventually reach a full product eventually - someone like Google should be on version 2 by now! ;-)
You beat me to it! I was about to write a post with the same title :-)
I think the beta tag will start to bite credibility. Can't keep telling organisations to switch to the cloud with no guarantees when you get there...
I think most people have accepted that web services are constantly evolving and therefore blips will occur. ('Yikes, Google just deleted my account'; 'Yikes, Facebook won't let me delete my account') Better to take be clear about service/support and suggest back-up plans/alternatives than hide behind a beta tag.
Because life is always in beta.
@wisemx the Outlook connector for Hotmail is neither POP nor IMAP.
What is it? I know Vlad is not going to like this, but even he will admit that this has been on the cards
Most people wouldn't know the difference between Alpha or Beta. This is geek talk. The real innovation of Google is not in technology but in marketing.
Sam Miller
Walker's Research - a provider of quality business information
It's still in beta because they can't figure out how to make money with it. Thats the sad truth behind everything.
Here is the kicker: In order to ask people for money, you have to offer support. And while you can scale the heck out of a data center with beige boxes and pizza racks, you can't do that to support.
Google takes items it can sell out of beta. Google Search, Adwords, Adsense, Search Appliances, Google Checkout, none carry a beta tag. But everything else that is not 100% Google creation but just a mashup of stuff found elsewhere with no reoccuring or predictable revenue stream stays in beta.
This has not changed in over a decade, it will never change. Beta has, does and always will be a description of an unsupported "but we wish you the best of luck" solution.
-Vlad
Aside from Google's Search & YouTube, I believe every Google product is still in Beta, maybe they just feel more comfortable that way.