Finally the overuse of the term 'Beta' is getting some attention.  The Wall Street Journal ran a story today calling major players in the software industry on their use of 'the Beta excuse'.  What was once a term used in computer development, where alpha meant a period of internal testing and beta meant a brief test by a handpicked selection of the public, has become a widespread marketing tool to release half-baked software onto the masses. 

I suspect that our era of Open Source and the success of the perpetual development model has allowed greater public acceptance of incomplete product.  Tech savvy consumers eager to get their hands on new technology are willing to work with deficient or downright buggy tools.  Software from Microsoft Windows to Mac OSX now offer daily downloads indicating that these programs are never quite 'finished' so jumping into a 'beta' software such as Google's GMail or Yahoo's Flickr isn't a giant step for most users. 

The unfortunate side effect is that we have lost the original meaning of the term 'beta'.  This bastardization of the term has fooled even the new media pundits.  JD Lasica, co-founder and executive director of Ourmedia.org, recently posted a dismissive blog entry on the new beta video tool in Six Apart's TypePad product.  The tool is in a real 'beta' period and is only offering upload of 2 minute videos - this doesn't satisfy the consumer who wants a beta to be functional rather than a test environment. 

It would seem that we need a new term to define the period between alpha and the marketing term beta - something that accurately describes the test period and can work outside the heightened expectations of the new vernacular.