Beta Forever?
Jessica had some obvious problems switching this blog from the old Blogger to the new Blogger Beta. She's not the only one who has blogged about Blogger Beta problems.
Now, I'm a big fan of the concept of "beta is forever," which has become one of the defining principles of Library 2.0. But releasing a product or service in beta that causes more frustrations, and more frustrated public blog posts, doesn't do anyone much good. I'm not saying everything has to work perfectly, but there should be more positives than negatives. When Firefox 2 came out, there were some problems (heck, my own upgrade on our family computer went much less than smoothly, making me a very cranky and unhappy camper), but in general, the responses I saw to it (and my own overall feelings about it) were positive.
I've really tried to apply "beta is forever" and good beta practices a part of my regular work at my library. When we're planning new programs and services and hammering out all of the details, I think it's important to keep in mind, and the remind everyone else, that what we present to the public doesn't have to be perfect, the final product. But it does have to be good, and we shouldn't put something out that's half-assed and a dollar short.
What does everyone else think about "beta is forever"? In what ways have you (or could you) apply it to your regular work? In what way can it be practically applied to librarianship in general? And in what ways is it a bad idea?
EDIT: In trying to set up "labels" for this post, I got a bunch of error messages that basically tell me the new Blogger doesn't handle tagging all that well.
Now, I'm a big fan of the concept of "beta is forever," which has become one of the defining principles of Library 2.0. But releasing a product or service in beta that causes more frustrations, and more frustrated public blog posts, doesn't do anyone much good. I'm not saying everything has to work perfectly, but there should be more positives than negatives. When Firefox 2 came out, there were some problems (heck, my own upgrade on our family computer went much less than smoothly, making me a very cranky and unhappy camper), but in general, the responses I saw to it (and my own overall feelings about it) were positive.
I've really tried to apply "beta is forever" and good beta practices a part of my regular work at my library. When we're planning new programs and services and hammering out all of the details, I think it's important to keep in mind, and the remind everyone else, that what we present to the public doesn't have to be perfect, the final product. But it does have to be good, and we shouldn't put something out that's half-assed and a dollar short.
What does everyone else think about "beta is forever"? In what ways have you (or could you) apply it to your regular work? In what way can it be practically applied to librarianship in general? And in what ways is it a bad idea?
EDIT: In trying to set up "labels" for this post, I got a bunch of error messages that basically tell me the new Blogger doesn't handle tagging all that well.
Labels: BETA, librarianship, usage
