Gizmodo’s piece yesterday, A Call for Revolution Against Beta Culture is right on. Thanks to web 2.0 and our inclination towards participatory culture we seem far more accommodating of bugs today than would have been acceptable only a few short years ago.
Finish the product design, test it and THEN release it. Just imagine the happy customers …
…and the lost revenue. Beta is here to stay – look at Google.
not everyone is monetizing through other means … particularly on the hardware side. I bet the support costs are considerably higher for both the operator and manufacturer when you release product that's not ready. web software is a different game.
As soon as I saw Jesus Diaz' name attached the article turned into a glob of rubbish. Gizmodo glorifies stupidity and he's a senior editor.
Yeah it looks like I should have broken my “no reading Gizmodo posts” rule before jumping to conclusions. 😉
I do stand by my initial response though. Holding back a product, hardware or software, means you're not making money on that product. Support is getting cheaper as is everything else and companies can't afford to leave sales at the door on account of development.
As for the linked article, I still haven't read it but I did skim it. To use the iPhone 3G as an example was just a horrible, horrible idea. Delay its release for software fixes? For real? Tons of people reported early issues with it, some major such as reception. Did those reports dissuade any substantial number of people from purchasing one? Of course they didn't. Did those issues result in escalated support costs for Apple and/or AT&T? Probably, but certainly not anything close to iPhone 3G profits during that time period. A low single-digit percentage of that figure at best would be my guess.
It's a very interesting topic for discussion, but the end result will always be the same – cash rules.
…and the lost revenue. Beta is here to stay – look at Google.
not everyone is monetizing through other means … particularly on the hardware side. I bet the support costs are considerably higher for both the operator and manufacturer when you release product that's not ready. web software is a different game.
As soon as I saw Jesus Diaz' name attached the article turned into a glob of rubbish. Gizmodo glorifies stupidity and he's a senior editor.
Yeah it looks like I should have broken my “no reading Gizmodo posts” rule before jumping to conclusions. 😉
I do stand by my initial response though. Holding back a product, hardware or software, means you're not making money on that product. Support is getting cheaper as is everything else and companies can't afford to leave sales at the door on account of development.
As for the linked article, I still haven't read it but I did skim it. To use the iPhone 3G as an example was just a horrible, horrible idea. Delay its release for software fixes? For real? Tons of people reported early issues with it, some major such as reception. Did those reports dissuade any substantial number of people from purchasing one? Of course they didn't. Did those issues result in escalated support costs for Apple and/or AT&T? Probably, but certainly not anything close to iPhone 3G profits during that time period. A low single-digit percentage of that figure at best would be my guess.
It's a very interesting topic for discussion, but the end result will always be the same – cash rules.