Don’t Blow Your Beta is an eye opener article from TechCrunch. This is something developers and project managers should keep in mind.
Here is an excerpt from Ajaxian
- do not release incomplete or broken features
- don’t hold back features just to have new items in a month
- IE still has the mainstream market, but early adopters use Firefox and Safari - ignore them at your peril
- avoid the eternal “lauching soon” page - do it close to release and give info on what you are releasing
- engage bloggers, and don’t get into flamewars with them (even if you are right)
- don’t ask for any more personal info then you need
Release or Public Beta?
Jason of 37Signals said;
There’s a better way not to blow your beta: don’t launch one at all. Public betas are rediculous. If your product is public, it’s not a beta, it’s a release. Take responsibility for your product. “Beta” only passes the buck to your customers ǃÓ outsourcing your pain to them.
Personally, it is really hard to keep to rules, follow standards in these scenarios. Well, actually, Are there any rules, standards at all? It is way difficult than even programming/coding where you know what to do, what rules to follow and which standard to use.
Via: Ajaxian
Brajeshwar posted this article
on Wed, Jan 11th, 2006 at 6:03 am
Categorized under Management
Comments Post Yours
There are one response so far. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
>> Public betas are rediculous.
Jason, I take it you don’t use GMail? it’s a beta - deliberatly for the early adopters.
whats the diff between MS giving out beta and RC software to anyone who has even looks sideways at them and may have an interest Vs going the step further and making it “public”? either way, the only ppl interested would be early adopters (who don’t seem mind the grief so thety can get up to speed with it)?
>> what rules to follow and which standard to use
http://kay.smoljak.com/archives/?when-is-a-standard-a-standard
Post yours