Comments on: Web 2.0: Web of Beta

By: Om Malik on Broadband : » The Beta As An Excuse?

Om Malik on Broadband : » The Beta As An Excuse? — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 21:16:55 +0000

[...] The Wall Street Journal is talking about the recent craze for Beta only products jump started by Google aka “king of beta.” I am sure there are a lot of people who think it is a good thing, but to me it represents a malaise no one talks about: lack of focus and intimate knowledge of what you are trying to build. Amongst the two most used Web 2.0 products out in the market never did live-betas. Flickr was a well conceived product, with Stewart and Caterina figuring out precisely the features they wanted in the product. They have made incremental changes, but hardcore Flickr users tell me, it was the shizzle from early on. Ditto for Net News Wire, which despite its age, is the best RSS reader for the Mac. Its version 2.0 is a little different from the original, and Brent Simmons has added support for say Podcasts, but the basic premise hasn’t changed. I kinda say the technology business is still an inexact science. JZ’s Apple iPod problems, constant virus problems and all that stuff…. if tech industry was Detroit, well Congressional inquiry would be under way by now. [...]

By: Oskar Syahbana

Oskar Syahbana — Mon, 21 Nov 2005 17:37:00 +0000

Yup, you rarely sees a web 2.0 company comes out of beta. The only one I know which is not on beta is digg. Hell, even Flickr is still on beta!

By: Om Malik

Om Malik — Mon, 21 Nov 2005 01:56:27 +0000

i guess, its all the new companies releasing their beta versions and only beta version. sort a tongue in cheek.

By: Bob Kagle

Bob Kagle — Mon, 21 Nov 2005 01:50:06 +0000

WTF does “Web OF Beta” mean???

By: Zoli's Blog

Zoli's Blog — Sun, 20 Nov 2005 22:00:07 +0000

Beta or Rel 1.0? Sick of Products That Don't Work.

(Updates at bottom) Guerilla Product Marketing Principles from Charlie Wood’s Moonwatcher (via Paul Kedrosky’s Infectious Greed):“Version 1 of a product should crawl. This means it should do the bare minimum to be recognizable as what it's inten...