LebGeeks

WizaRd

Member

Half of Google products -- are in BETA!

Very nice article I came across today, ever wondered why !?

Read more here.

Last edited by Flyingwizard (October 11 2008)

mir

Member

Re: Half of Google products -- are in BETA!

The Perpetual Beta ...

" beta has a different meaning when applied to applications on the Web, where people expect continual improvements in a product.  On the Web, you don't have to wait for the next version to be on the shelf or an update to become available.  Improvements are rolled out as they're developed.  Rather than the packaged, stagnant software of decades past, we're moving to a world of regular updates and constant feature refinement where applications live in the cloud"

BashLogic

Member

Re: Half of Google products -- are in BETA!

its just a rebranding so that they can make adjustments freely as they best see fit and not having to address disapointment when not delivering new stuff. its a marketing trick. if hotmail would have branded itself as beta as well, gmail might have never come to exist...

WizaRd

Member

Re: Half of Google products -- are in BETA!

And as someone mentioned in the comments on that page, big enterprises and corporate users would shy away from BETA products. But I guess Google doesn't need the money anyway.

samer

Admin

Re: Half of Google products -- are in BETA!

its just a rebranding so that they can make adjustments freely as they best see fit and not having to address disapointment when not delivering new stuff. its a marketing trick.

Facebook should have done this!

Chris

Member

Re: Half of Google products -- are in BETA!

Facebook is moving way too fast IMO, even though I do like the new layout and improvements but they're also losing a lot of ground users-wise. Like mentioned before, BETA seems to keep people interested and make them feel like they're somehow taking part of development.

As far as Google is concerned, who cares really most (if not all) of their products just work fine, they only look like shit (under OS X at least).

rolf

Member

Re: Half of Google products -- are in BETA!

It makes users feel like "early adopters", like they found something new before everyone else does... and theyre lucky to be part of the change. I think its an idea from google marketing.
Any decent developer would not have mass-released a product which is really in beta status, so its gotta be an idea from the marketing department.
It is probably similar to the gmail invite thingie, to make users feel special. Everyone likes to feel priveledged, and everyone likes to chase something and get it.
The beta trick is getting a bit old though.

And as someone mentioned in the comments on that page, big enterprises and corporate users would shy away from BETA products. But I guess Google doesn't need the money anyway.

Big enterprises (and even small businesses) tend not to trust Google with their data.

Last edited by rolf (February 20 2009)