Activity 3: Perpetual Beta

Another one of O'Reilly's web 2.0 application patterns is the perpetual beta of these applications. This involves the constant updating current and adding of new features to an application, meaning that there has been a shift in the way that these programs are delivered, moving away from being a product and becoming a service.

Tumblr

Tumblr is a microblogging platform which allows its users to create their own posts or share others by reblogging them. They can also follow these blogs and have their posts appear on their dashboard, or like posts if they want to show their appreciation without the content appearing on their own blog.

Best Practices

One of the best practices that Tumblr is a great example of is that it releases early and often. This means that it is constantly adding new features to its product as well as updating and improving its existing ones. Therefore, any bugs within their system are also being found quickly and rectified. This means that users are constantly getting improvements and maintain their interest in the platform, whilst the developers are continuously getting feedback from users ensuring that they are in fact creating what the users want.

Another best practice that Tumblr is utilising is engaging its users. The staff of the website maintain major two blogs relating to this, one a general purpose one, and another dedicated to updates from their software engineers. This lets users know what updates have been made to the website, both front and backend, and how these will affect the user's experience and interactions with the website.

Comparison

Blogger is a competing blogging platform owned by Google. However, this service has its users focus on creating their own content rather than sharing the content of others, but unlike Tumblr, it does allow for commenting on posts. However, compared to Tumblr, Blogger has a lot of work to do on its perpetual beta strategy. Like Tumblr, its staff members maintain a blog on what updates are being made to the platform, but it is infrequently updated. There appears to only very rarely have new features added or updated, with 5 functionalities added or updated in the past two years, compared to Tumblr's many more.

However, Blogger does have a major focus on the best practice of making operations a core competency. Being owned by Google, its uptime can be monitored through their apps status dashboard. This releases information on whenever there has been a service disruption or outage. Through this service, Google also tells its users how they will be affected, when they expect the issue/s to be solved and if it is possible for it to be recurring. This is a great initiative by Google, as it shows their trust in their users and they make themselves publicly responsible for any problems users encounter.

Future

Tumblr has many options and paths for the future, and since it is in perpetual beta, its developers are easily able to trial new features and updates. Tumblr could improve its services by embracing making operations a core competency by releasing information about its uptime, like Blogger, and increase user trust in the platform. Another area which Tumblr could improve its operations is by engaging its users more in co-development, either by opening itself up more to user suggestions for improvements or by creating an option where users can become testers for functions that haven't been generally released yet.

What do you think of Tumblr's perpetual beta strategy? Tell me about it in the comments.