Google To Continue News "Beta" Indefinitely
Craig Silverstein of Google recently was interviewed by ZDNet UK, revealing little of news or interest in the process, save that the "Beta" phase of its news capability could be extened indefinitely, much as the original Google search engine was considered a "Beta" phase product under development for years. While many companies would be hesitant to have a long-term Beta phase content product out in front of the entire world for so long, it is in many ways an excellent product development scheme and an excellent marketing ploy for Google. By exposing it to the most people possible, Google builds up a huge amount of relationship capital in delivering new kinds of on-the-fly content aggregation through feedback and ongoing improvements, while from a marketing standpoint expectations are kept low if things aren't perfect and an aura of newness is retained that can allow them to do any number of soft relaunches without investing much time or effort. Given that their news capability is up against many established players, this is probably an effective strategy - unless the competition manages to come out with more and better features more quickly. Google seems to be betting against this, and perhaps for the moment they're right. But as other aggregators take a look at their capabilities more carefully, they may find their timetable disturbed in this increasingly competitive space.