Week 8: Perpetual Beta

This week, our Web 2.0 pattern is the "Perpetual Beta".  Providing a service on the internet removes much of the costs and problems once associated with software releases: you no longer have to prepare such-and-such a number of physical CDs, and prepare them in boxes to be shipped on certain dates to certain stores in certain countries to be put on sale at certain times.  The producers need only publish their work to a given web space, and the service is thenceforth immediately available to all users.

This allows for a great deal of flexibility in release schedules.  You don't need to release everything straight away.  You don't need to do a great deal of internal testing (the users can do this for you, for free)!  The result has been the "Perpetual Beta".  Release early, so your users get some of the functionality immediately.  Release often, because there is always an improvement to be made or a feature to add.

What example can I possible use this week?  The "Perpetual Beta" is applied, implicitly, to all Web 2.0 applications; it is a consequence of the development environment, the platform, and the user's demands.  So why not talk about Facebook?

You can use the Facebook Blog to get a reading on how many updates are made to Facebook's functionality over time.  The last post made on the Blog is dated 19 January 2012 at the time of writing, but in January alone of this year the Blog announced more than 10 new Apps based around Facebook's new "Timeline" feature, and the ability to listen to music with your friends.  December of 2011 including the release of the Timeline feature itself, and many improvements for Facebook on Android devices.  It seems like every month they're releasing some extra feature or improvement, and this is without people designing all kinds of apps and games for Facebook in their own time!

Facebook might have been good enough had it stayed the way it was a couple of years ago, but by taking full advantage of Perpetual Beta, Facebook is always being tested by its users, and improved by the developers.  Facebook gets better every month because of this, and therefore is an excellent service for displaying the power of the principles of the Perpetual Beta!