There was a time when I cold called software companies asking to try beta software. To date these events, the ones that accepted usually sent me their software on 3.5” floppy disks. It’s been quite awhile.
The internet made getting beta software a lot easier, downloading it is quick and painless, but it also came with a serious setback. The original concept of beta software was to get it in the hands of real users, let them test it, use their feedback and then incorporate it into the eventual shipping release.
The key differentiating factor was that no one in their right mind would use beta software in a production environment or as an application that held any sort of critical information.
The .com bubble burst this philosophy and sites of all kinds came out in beta and attracted millions of users. No offender of this was worse than Google and specifically Gmail.
Now Google will make the argument that they have finally left the beta phase that they stayed in for literally years, but recent mishaps of data security would leave one room to argue that there are still some major bugs in the works and using it for anything mission critical or with sensitive information is clearly a problem.
Google seems to be getting smarter by really clamping down on invites to new features like Google Voice and Google Wave, but my question still remains. Is the concept of Beta software too watered down now? Do users see it as potentially unstable software that should not be used to hold any information that is mission critical or sensitive in nature?
Thoughts?