beta forever?
THE term ‘beta‘ has been using on the Internet by several enterprise for many years.
For example, Google’s apps such as Gmail, Google docs and Google calendar had used ‘beta’ label for 5 years, and it finally dropped ‘beta’ label on 8 July in 2009.
But, for what reasons or factors that make Google dropping this label? Well, it is hard to say. The product management director of Google Matt Glotzbach said that “the products have all reached unspecified internal metrics in terms of reliability and usability (Krazit, 2009)”.
However, in my opinion, it seems no necessary to drop the ‘beta’ label for these Web 2.0 applications. Because these apps are still continentally updating. The content of updating includes: new ideas, functions and appearance. This is why O’Reilly (2005) said “the perpetual beta”.
And maybe, the so-called “blah blah blah 2.0” means “beta forever“, because the product will never become a formed product and it will constantly update.
What do you reckon for this statement?
Reference:
Krazit, T. (2009, July 7). Google Apps shed beta label. cnet news. Retrieved October 8, 2009, from http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10280473-2.html
O’Reilly, T. (2005). What is Web 2.0. Retrieved October 8, 2009, from http://oreilly.com/pub/a/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html?page=1
James is discussing. 
James 2:47 am on 18/09/2010 Permalink |
“No matter what tools you use, it will still be necessary to use human judgement to figure out if a web page is accessible. For example assessment tools can tell you if there is some alt text missing. But it cannot tell you if the alternative representation makes sense and will be of use to those for whom it is intended. – Michael Burks”