Nothing is perfect. I’d rather have something better now, than wait eons for something perfect. When I was early on in my career, my client (one of the best I’ve ever had) said to me, “everything on the web is always in beta.” She was smart, probably one of the smartest people I had worked with…so I listened. She went on to explain that too often people forget that nothing is bug free. Not cars, not houses, not computers, not software and certainly not websites. Now, it would have been easy for this to have just been rhetoric. But, over the 2+ years we worked together she proved that this wasn’t just rhetoric or idle philosophy; it was something she believed, supported and educated her team (above, below and horizontally) to embrace. I look back at that working relationship with fondness. We innovated and launched some of the best work I’ve had the privilege to be associated with.
Microsoft dedicates and entire site to the list of known bugs in Microsoft Office. Google has done the same for Google Chrome. Google, is probably one of the biggest embracers of the Always In Beta mantra. Gmail sat in beta for 5 years before Google took off the “beta” label. Gmail isn’t alone. There are more than a dozen applications, tools and pieces of software that are in beta. In 2008, half of Google’s product offerings were in beta. Think about that. Google serves billions of users daily and they’re not afraid of bugs, broken/missing functionality or a potentially negative user experience.
In fact, here’s what a Google Spokesman said about their philosophy on beta:
“We have very high internal metrics our consumer products have to meet before coming out of beta. Our teams continue to work to improve these products and provide users with an even better experience. We believe beta has a different meaning when applied to applications on the Web, where people expect continual improvements in a product. On the Web, you don’t have to wait for the next version to be on the shelf or an update to become available. Improvements are rolled out as they’re developed. Rather than the packaged, stagnant software of decades past, we’re moving to a world of regular updates and constant feature refinement where applications live in the cloud.”
It’s a brilliant philosophy and one that helps underscore why Google has been so successful. Bugs are part of the game and the process. They’re also part of the way the web works. For example, with the iPad’s launch, many of the iPhone apps had a big time bug from a user experience perspective. They were bite sized and not taking advantage of the larger screen real estate the iPad offers. Was this a bug? Technically no. But, from a user experience standpoint it was. Was there anything these developers could have done to avoid this bug? No, the iPad didn’t exist when they developed their apps. The same thing happens when a new browser comes out or even a new version of the same browser.
The web is iterative in nature. It’s an always living, breathing and changing eco system. It’s not stagnent. It’s not static. It evolves. It’s been evolving since the web became something real. And here’s the cool thing, as the web has evolved, so have the users. They understand that the web is always in beta. Hell, they grew up with Internet Explorer 6 
I’m not advocating embracing an idea of launching things that clearly don’t work. But, I do believe there is a 80% rule that needs to be considered. Because, if you abide by the concept of waiting for 100% of the bugs to be removed, you’ll miss 100% of the opportunity.
Head of Social Media at Walgreens. Interactive marketer, innovator, boat rocker, continuous learner, movie lover, risk taker, dad and all around good guy. I'm always up for a spirited conversation. These are my thoughts and ramblings, not those of my employer.
