For some beta testers, it's about buzz, not bugs | CNET News.com

This is pretty much true. Early, "exclusive" access to beta versions of software is a huge privledge, one that I take pretty seriously. But there tends to be a lot of pain that goes with it, depending on the software I'm testing at the time. One of the hardest things I do is testing versions of Windows, since it can frequently leave my machines crippled while I wait for bugs to be addressed.

However, there has been a lot of trending towards companies releasing a "beta" (which used to mean "feature complete, but still has show-stopper bugs") for the purposes of marketing. "Here's our program, but it's beta, so if it breaks, don't come crying to us." Especially in the Massively Multiplayer Online game market, a beta is more a way to load test and generate buzz about a game early. I don't think these companies seriously expect people to file bug reports, or they'd have more elegant (and automated) ways of doing it.

There are software products out there that have never had a non-beta release. It think the term "beta" has lost a lot of it's meaning, or at the very least, hasn't had it's meaning properly communicated.