Q: Beta Bites does not follow up on a product after the product is finished. Why did you decide to feature undeveloped software only?

A: Alpha and Beta software means it is a product under development. Alpha/Beta testing is all about finding bugs for the developer to help them make a better product to release to the general public. Beta Bites is a resource site for testing products. Once a product is released to the public, it is considered out of Beta testing, although, it still may get patched (look at games). We have enough work on BB with just following products under development that we had to draw the line somewhere. Besides there are a number of websites that follow released products, BB is a more specialized website. We do not want to be something we can't be..."everything." We want to be the best in our specialized area.

Q: Beta Bites offers more than just game betas, it offers application and the occasional hardware beta as well. What seems to be the most popular part of your site?

A: Much to my surprise, the application betas are hot! Our BB Windows95/98/NT is our 2nd most visited page after the main news page. There are just tons of little application betas out there on the internet.Small developers are creating little programs everyday for consumers because they found a need themselves to make something work better or more efficiently. The BB features such as previews, firstlooks, and interviews are also extremely popular.

Q: What is involved when someone decides to beta test a product? Is it all fun and games or do these people actually have to do some work?

A: It is both. The biggest mistake a new tester makes is testing a product for the pure enjoyment of the product or to see what it is like. This is not testing. Betas are buggy! They can crash your system, give you fatal exception errors, or weird graphics. Beta testers do get to try out a new OS or game beta to see what it is like, but they must be willing to pay the cost. The cost being the errors and bugs they run across that can affect their systems and taking the time to report and document them properly!

Being a tester is a commitment to participate in the bug reporting system. When you are selected to test a product, you are agreeing to a NDA and a responsibility to report bugs. You become part of a community to solve the problems in the product to get it released.

My suggestion to anyone just wanting to try out a product is to wait for a demo or free trial to be released. The alternative is to start testing in the "Open Beta" vs. "Closed" phase which is the last phase before release of the product. This way you can gain some testing experience, plus, hopefully enjoy the product for it should have less bugs.

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