Alpha, beta… web 2.0 soup
I'm a software developer and website programmer and I used to get very serious about my own project progress. A few years ago, whenever a project was being developed, we started it in alpha version, which meant "Incomplete and only accessible to developers". Later on we changed to beta, meaning that it was "Finished but buggy, and only a few selected users could try it". And finally the public release, without bugs (As we hoped) and all perfect and running ( 
).
But then web 2.0 was born, and in this new Internet age there were tons of "companies" being born, and I put companies between "" because nowadays pretty much anyone can put a website online and call it a company. And if they've hired good designers and programmers, they'll be offering a quality service, and they will call that "web 2.0". Now in this rush to get to the public as fast as possible everyone is just skipping the "debug process" and releasing the beta version either publicly or by email invitation, both of them ending up in being the same...
And it is not as if I don't like web 2.0, obviously this increases the number of sites available and makes them a little more "familiar", with all the developers who visit them and care enough reporting bugs, lots of people contributing, and making all together this new experience where the site is the users and not the owner.
I guess this is a clear sign of how times change, and how thing develop themselves naturally, but if this is something that evolves at the same rythm what is the next? Being packed with alpha releases that don't even work as expected?
Are the "Beta" badges being pushed to the end of the "trendy line"? I guess we'll have to wait a little longer to see that, but by the looks of it the Internet is going to need a complete redesign, from ground up, to keep up with the user's needs that don't even give time to websites to get out of beta version before release...
Post your opinion below, and we'll start a lovely discussion
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