The state of beta
ZDNet published an article on the current state of the term "beta" in web-based products and services. It features criticism from one woman who apparently got burned by a bad beta experience while also getting opinions from Flickr's Christina Fake about why they continue to use the label.

Maybe it's just me, but I actually kind of like the fact that products like Gmail and Flickr are in beta. That implies that there will be more features coming out.

We recently launched some new features on a project that I'm involved with at work. We used the beta label on those features because we will be rolling out a series of improvements over a relatively short period of time. We felt that the beta label lets users know that the features are still evolving. They also tend to be less likely to complain too loudly when they encounter issues.

Maybe people would've been less harsh on the gaping holes in IE6 if MS had placed a beta label on it. I wonder if it is too late to add it?