Beta within a Beta ★
June 8, 2008
Gmail stayed in Beta stage for 4 years now. Now Beta itself means experimental. When they introduced Gmail Labs, I was confused as to why they had to give it a name. The answer is simple, because Gmail which is actually in Beta is very well polished with few bugs.
Introducing new features before they are tested fully and ready for Gmail beta is a way Google can talk about how Gmail is improving at the same time having the improvements tested by a much larger population a not limiting it only to the Gmail team. So they couldn’t have called it Gmail Alpha Features because alpha is a step back. While for them, Labs is a step forward.
I think this is the model that most new services should offer. Rapid development of ideas that blurs the line between betas, alphas, release candidates and stables. That is the way to stay relevant and competitive in a field where copying your ideas is not too tough.
The problem is I guess, there is a big black hole that disposes off ideas before they are well thought about. They do not remain on the planning charts if they are not possible to implement at that particular time.
Previous template was better…
Regards
(Siddharth Razdan)
Oh, I like simplicity. This is just awesome. It will grow on you.