Perpetual Beta
According to Wikipedia, “Perpetual Beta is a term used to describe software or a system which remains at the beta development stage for an extended or even indefinite period of time. It is often used by developers in order to allow them to constantly release new features that might not be fully tested. As a result, perpetual beta software is not recommended for mission critical machines. However, many operational systems find this to be a much more rapid & agile approach to development, staging, and deployment” [Wikipedia, 2010]
This week, my Web 2.0 Application is IMVU. It actually took me quite some time to find another Web 2.0 Application that uses Perpetual Beta to review apart from Google’s Gmail, and I wanted to do something different as I have already seen quite a few Gmail reviews from other classmates.
IMVU Logo
IMVU, or “I Envy You”, is a 3D graphical instant messageing client that allows you to virtually Dress Up, Shop in Style, Meet new friends and Create your own Designs. They have posted a YouTube video on there front page which is worth watching. It is infact a Perpetual Beta, as it clearly states this in the top left corner of there website near the logo and has been running since 2004. I have found a very interesting blog from Timothy Fitz about the Continuous Development Cycle that IMVU are using. They are supposably running 50 new code deployments a day. I presume he is employed with IMVU, but I’m not fully sure myself.
IMVU Chat
“IMVU currently hosts over 100 million registered users, 6 million unique monthly visitors and a $25 million revenue run rate, as of October 4, 2009. Currently, it is in public beta, and has been available since April 2, 2004. IMVU was founded by Will Harvey, a video game developer and founder of There and has the world’s largest catalog of virtual goods with over 4 million items, produced by over 100,000 content creators, and now run by CEO Cary Rosenzweig, who took the position in November 2007. It is estimated that IMVU currently generates approximately $2 million in revenue per month, 90% of which comes directly from the sale of virtual goods.” [Wikipedia, 2010]
References:
Perpetual Beta. 2010. Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_beta. (accessed April 25, 2010)
IMVU. 2010. 3D Chat and Dress Up. http://www.imvu.com/. (accessed April 25, 2010)
IMVU. 2010. Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMVU. (accessed April 25, 2010)
Fitz, T. 2010. Continuous Development at IMVU. http://timothyfitz.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/continuous-deployment-at-imvu-doing-the-impossible-fifty-times-a-day/. (accessed April 25, 2010)
Bolton, M. 2010. 50 Deployments a Day and The Perpetual Beta. http://www.developsense.com/blog/2009/03/50-deployments-day-and-perpetual-beta/. (accessed April 25, 2010)
April 27, 2010 at 12:15 am
Just a side note to the above post, I found a very interesting blog, by the name of what they called Life 2.0 and the perpetual beta. Read it here: http://www.onethingnew.com/2007/03/15/life-20-is-a-perpetual-beta-release/
April 27, 2010 at 12:17 am
Also a site by the name of Bokardo: social web design, makes a very good statement about blogging and that technically it is the Perpetual Beta also as we are continually adding to our posts, which may not have been there when you wrote it initially. You can view it here: http://bokardo.com/archives/9-lessons-for-would-be-bloggers/
April 29, 2010 at 9:38 am
Nice example of an app in perpetual beta. Seems like a real goldmine, I read that 90% of their revenue comes from virtual goods. I find it hard to believe people would pay for virtual goods, however I think this app mostly appeals to kids, so that is probably the answer. Have you used it yourself or anything like it? Do you think they have any long-time users?
April 29, 2010 at 11:44 am
Interesting blog Brett. With IMVU, we don’t have to spend thousands of dollars to create a mini-empire with a cash return.
Having said that, i found that IMVU doesn’t deal with a broker that offers to sell your credits for more. With every item sale, IMVU absorbs a fraction to cover expenses of the item use. Thus, once there are no more discounted credits, the customers have only one choice. Restock at full price. Do you think this is the way to go to suck consumers money behind the scene?