zephoria asks, what is beta in the context of social software?
This isn't a limitation only of social software, of course: the game world experiences the same phenomenon (as Christopher Allen points out).
A few years ago, Gina Neff and David Stark wrote an essay: Permanently Beta: Responsive Organization in the Internet Era.
In it, they argue that the continuing cycle of beta software is a new way of running organizations, ones that have a built-in feedback cycle between users and organizations.
But one of the side effects of this responsive organization is that it stays responsive: that the organization and the products within are never "finished", are always co-evolving with their environment--are, in other words, always in Beta.
"Friendster Beta", as one might read the title page, is simply declaring that status on its front page.
January 31, 2004 04:13 PM | TrackBack | in Social Networks