C'mon people, you think if Google's Gmail is in BETA since ever it is so groovy if your site is BETA too? Or is that one of those Web 2.0 things? For me Beta means "Come back later, we're not done yet", and is without a doubt #1 crediblity killer. And your opinion? What does beta means to you? What beta means to ordinary people using internet?
BETA to me suggests, "We are really nearly done! Theres a few more bugs and glitch to fix, but we was so eager to release it and since we couldn't wait here you go!"
I prefer a "BETA" site instead seeing one of th 1000s "under construction" pages. Beta shows that people are working on it and that there will be some issues now and then during the beta period. Google overuses it because they are "big" and a lot of issues can happen if a million people signup at once so it's understandable that they overuse "BETA".
I don't think they overuse BETA. Gmail - BETA Product Search (Froogle) - BETA Book Search - BETA Google Video - BETA Calendar - BETA Finance - BETA Orkut - BETA (crap) Patent Search - BETA Scholar - BETA Translate - BETA SMS - BETA Talk - BETA
Ya I believe beta means to me (as stated by others above) that they pretty much have a product finished but there are glitches in the system. It's not that much of a credibility killer if you site does something awesome (like Gmail). Skinny
For me it is extremely funny to show beta sign as a reward: For ordinary people Beta means nothing. Why bothering with it at the first place? Are webmasters just too geeky? Is it a trend for websmaters to have BETA and WEB 2.0. in the "title"? I have built some awesome sites. Never put a Beta sing in the logo. If there were bugs on the page, nobody would complain about them. And nobody ever have. And I don't think BETA sign would fix that anyway. So it is just a trend, like saying "my website is Web 2.0". For me it's lame.
One of my webapps is indeed in Beta, but I don't really label it as such - I just actively solicit feedback
i think for goggle it means we think it works fine but we better be on the safe side and call it beta in cast any better finds some big bugs in it. and it is a way to make it sound like they are tiring to give us more???/