If memory serves me correctly, Microsoft was one of the first companies to request people for a beta program. Over the years, the beta program has had fantastic results. Specifically, the beta program was a large part of their winning over developers all over the world.
So, now I am blaming Microsoft (several years late) for the current public beta website service. Everyone who has a website that has some dynamic functionality is now being released as a public beta. If the service was released as an invite-only private beta, then it is understandable just like the old product software beta programs. The public beta is one of the more annoying terms on the internet right now. I say this as a software developer understanding that companies and developers are releasing software that is most likely "very buggy". That is the point of a beta, get your customers to do some testing for you. So, I am not really complaining about the private beta either.
First, I have one request. Can we finally remove the beta tag from GMail considering they are selling the service? Are we done with the perpetual beta yet? Second, when did beta fall out of favor? Is beta not good enough anymore? I have seen two "alpha" designations this week.
First is SocialMedian, which I actually like a lot. However, they are in a private invite-only alpha. They also recently mentioned on Twitter that they are only a week or two away from the public beta! The other service I saw in private invite-only alpha was Gridjit which I have not had the chance to try.
Why does this bother me? Alpha software generally means that the software is buildable and testable, but in no way ready for public consumption. It gets labeled because only a potential customer about to pay you a lot of money for a specific feature gets that kind of release. Alpha means potentially seriously flawed. So, as a developer or company, why would you want an alpha service in front of anyone? I understand wanting feedback, and in this case you can do a private beta.