Friday, December 17, 2004

The Beta Plague

Are you also annoyed by meaningless “beta” signs popping up all over the net? They are today’s animated Under Construction GIFs – a way to tell visitors “don’t sue us, or complain, or think of our site as final.” To which the answer remained the same: “Of course your web site is an endless work in progress, and of course there will be some bugs – I understand how the web works (and if I don’t, the word ’Beta’ isn’t in my dictionary either).”

Daniel Terdiman of Wired writes:

“The term ’beta,’ once used to describe a brief, private final round of software testing, is these days being bandied about by seemingly every publicly available Web-based service that thinks it may someday add or modify a feature.”

And this is how some of the services have been doing lately (Google’s far from a shining example in these regards).

Today, I changed this blog’s logo to reflect its unfinishedness: sporadically, I add new posts pushing older ones out of the page; my ideas may evolve; I will learn new things; I may add new features; and sometimes, somewhere, somehow things may not make perfect sense to you yet. If you have a blog, as a warning to your visitors I urge you to also change your logo. Together we can take the Beta Plague to new heights.

The Beta Plague by Philipp Lenssen

Dangerous Words

Dangerous words collects some words and phrases one ought to avoid online. For example “and more” at the end of a list “promises everything and reveals nothing; a cheap tease for the unwary reader."

Dangerous Words by Philipp Lenssen

Useless Clutter

Very funny: an article about useless clutter in web design is itself totally buried in useless clutter. [Via J-Walk.]

Useless Clutter by Philipp Lenssen

Blinkx.tv

I couldn’t get the new Blinkx TV video search to work for me. Maybe you can.

Blinkx.tv by Philipp Lenssen

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