Yesterday I blogged about new virtual world/game called Sociotown. A few months ago I signed up to hear about their launch, and yesterday I was informed that I had “been selected to participate in the SocioTown Beta Test!”
I was slightly surprised to see that, at least according to Technorati, I was one of only two people who blogged about Sociotown in the first 24 hours of the beta invites being sent. Not exactly an overpowering buzz for Sociotown so far, it seems.
I’m sure invitation-only betas for online services have been around for quite a while, but the first one I recall being a big deal to me was for Google Analytics. (Actually I guess Gmail was invite-only, but the invites seemed to flow pretty fast and furious so it didn’t seem so exclusive, at least to me.)
Now, I understand ostensibly that the beta-invite thing is allow the service developers time to test their product with a limited number of people so they can deal with bugs, scale up their infrastructure, etc. but increasing it seems to be used to create a sense of exclusivity, similar to what Google did.
Here’s the problem, folks:
- Your service ain’t Gmail or Analytics.
- Your brand ain’t Google.
Private betas might (MIGHT) be a good idea in theory, but now more often than not it seems to me that they limit the audience to those inside the fishbowl, and potentially kill any word-of-mouth buzz you might generate with a launch.
I’ll always remember this Twitter tweet from new media maven and spiffy blazer-wearing guy Chris Brogan about Pownce ending their private beta:
Crickets, indeed. Pownce is great example of a site that, I believe, fell victim to the “beta blocking” phenomena. There was lots of buzz around Pownce when it launched as a possible Twitter-killer. The problem – a lot of folks who wanted to try it couldn’t get in because it was in private beta. I see the same problem with Joost and Sesmic. Yes, I suppose the jury is still out as to whether each of these services will ultimately succeed, but it seems to me that if you are trying to leverage buzz and grow a new service, limiting access is the last thing you want to do. I think the best thing you can do is open up to all comers as soon as humanly possible.
What do you think?
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It’s really weird. Yesterday, I got a gazillion beta invites to Grooveshark, so I started handing them out. Only, here’s what I had to do:
*Log in to my account.
*Enter the person’s email address.
*Click invite.
Nice, if done organically. Rough when I typed it 35 times in a row.
I’m starting to think that signups without even validating email are the new sexy.
I mean, not Jay Moonah sexy, but you get my point.
Thanks Chris. Personally I think what would be REALLY sexy would be a sign-up process that includes the standard email to invite your friends stuff, but also a customizable badge for Facebook or your blog or whatever, with one-click code right there. Leverage the nets, but let people see and choose to click rather than getting spammed to death by their friends.
I agree. I like a one-button fall-into-the-new experience use case. Someone make this. Now!
(wait…wait…)
Is it done?
I like that idea–a button we could post on Facebook, blog, website, link to from Twitter, etc. That way the betas could also track influence–who has the widest reach amongst their users.
Connie, that’s an amazing point! If someone developed an app, the folks who install it could agree to share their response data automatically to see where the responses are coming from. You could then map that against the type of site to get a sense of what nets perform best.
It’s at times like this I wish I was smart enough to implement these ideas as opposed to just toss them out there!
You and me both, Jay.
But it does make sense, because they will turn around later and try to measure that, right? Why not track it right from the beginning. We should hire someone to develop it for us…we could make millions. (Don’t tell anyone….)
I won’t if you don’t — and hopefully no one else will read these public comments.
Jay,
I think your experience explains why you were “Mr. Lonely” on your previous post
….brad….
[…] Memo to New Services: Don’t Beta Block Us, Bro! Are private betas a bad idea? (tags: social bookmarking beta private private_beta privatebeta joost sociotown seesmic pownce socialmedia socialnetworking socialnetwork network marketing media) […]
Hey Jay, thanks for blogging about SocioTown. I’m the Lead Developer.
The reason we’re stingy with the Beta Invites is because we’re using the Closed Beta for its original intended purpose: Find/fix bugs and get player feedback in a low-noise environment. You’re right, we’re not Google. We don’t have legions of QA testers who can stress-test the application on a variety of systems before even the first public user ever gets their hands on it.
We are a VERY small company, so the Private Beta is our first major testing ground not a marketing viral campaign. I’m happy with our current strategy because we had a ton of bugs the first couple of days.
It would have been a disaster if the game spread to quickly.
Though we’ll be shifting to an open beta later this week, so Invites won’t be necessary for long.
I just wanted to explain why our Invite-Only Beta was so small in scope because you raised some good points.
- Chris
Thanks for the info Chris. I work for a small company myself so I understand where you are coming from. The blog wasn’t aimed as much as SocioTown as it was at others who seem to drag on their beta programs forever. With you guys are planning a short closed beta phase, it does sound like you understand that much better than some other companies.
Best of luck with SocioTown, I’ll be continuing to check it out with much interest!
Cricke Cricket indeed. I joined Pownce very early on and was already on Twitter since Nov ‘06. But, when I set up my profile on Pownce, it was like a ghost town. Everyone and their mother was on twitter, which is why I use twitter much much more than Pownce. Pownce was in private beta for so long, people just joined Twitter and since everyone was already on there it was like the place to be. They only time I actively used Pownce was when Twitter said they’d be down for scheduled maintenance and everyone on Twitter made plans to communicate via Pownce and all of sudden people who had Pownce accounts were sending people on Twitter invites. After Twitter came back up, I put Pownce back in the closet; haven’t logged on since. Plus, their mobile app is not as great as twitter mobile apps. Just my two cents.
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