I am sorry, but it is time for a little rant here. So many companies are launching v1.0 of their products and web services as “beta”. Google is the biggest offender in my opinion, with most of their services staying “beta” for years at a time. Do you use or are you at least aware of Gmail? Are you aware of the fact that it only just came out of beta last week? I think that companies hide behind the beta shield like it somehow removes their responsibility to make a functional product. The idea of an alpha and a beta release are to work the bugs out using a focused and manageable group of typical users who provide you with feedback to help you finalize the product. We need to rebel against “beta” turning into a marketing term, because it isn’t. The beta phase of a product’s development actually shouldn’t have anything to do with marketing. Can you imagine if drug companies released a new drug as “beta” because it wasn’t fully tested yet and they wanted to see if anyone died before they “officially released” it? A word to anyone abusing this term: stop. Beta ≠ new, beta = in testing, needs work, not ready for release yet. If your product is not ready for prime time, do not market it, release it as a beta and work the kinks out, then let the world know about it. [/rant] (Make your own totally sweet ass web 2.0 logo here).