Suck

for 22 October 1996. Updated every TUESDAY.



	shareware.com meets The Sharper Image...
	in your mailbox and on the web!

	Exploiting the enthusiasm of the early
	adopter crowd with a mail-order warehouse
	specializing in prerelease
	quasi-functional hardware and software.

	In the online world, vaporware and beta
	software are two peas in a pod. In an
	industry where information is product, an
	announcement of software, however
	infeasible or even impossible, can launch
	a vast wave of mortal terror as easily as
	it can launch a new company. But however
	tantalizing the story might appear on the
	PR Newswire, it's only an opening blow
	and is invariably shortly followed by a
	more executable, if equally hollow,
	wallop: the pre-release beta. At this
	stage of online development, the routine
	is familiar, dependable , and mostly
	unremarkable. For the fleet-footed
	entrepreneur, the exciting element of
	this transaction is not the defect of the
	product but the by-product of the process -
	an anxious elite community of early
	adopters, wealthy and conditioned to
	accept abuse.



	Beta Boutique expands and sharpens this
	archetypal digital dynamic by adding
	revenue to the equation while expanding
	its scope beyond the online world. Both
	the frenzy of anticipation and intensity
	of traffic surrounding beta releases of
	information appliances such as Pointcast,
	Shockwave and Internet Explorer lead us
	to believe that they represent the most
	coveted products on the web. That they
	are routinely given away "free for
	evaluation" strikes us as the single
	greatest blunder of online commerce. To
	rectify this industry-sapping situation,
	the Beta Boutique will operate akin to an
	exclusive club. Above and beyond selling
	product, BB will charge a significant fee
	to the subscribers of our catalog/website
	as well as the companies who wish to
	raise much-needed capital for their
	merchandise through our service.

	Much like the pages of a typical Toys "R"
	Us or MacWarehouse catalog, every
	placement will command a fee,
	appropriately expensive as the Beta
	Boutique will cultivate a customer base
	with peerless demographics. Valued users
	may, from time to time, be given free
	copies of software exclusive to the
	service and asked for feedback, all for
	the purpose of fostering community. But
	the end goal of this strategy is not to
	move software, but to extend the mind-set
	of the users from the realm of software
	to that of tangible goods. Once our pool
	of customers condition themselves to
	covet semifunctional computer peripherals
	as well as general consumer goods, we
	will have accomplished an enviable and
	lucrative goal: the death of quality
	control and usability testing.

	Aside from nominal costs of printing
	catalogs, purchasing customer lists,
	and maintaining the website, Beta
	Boutique depends upon the cultivation of
	exclusive strategic alliances with key
	software and hardware manufacturers. Most
	major vendors will wish to eventually
	distribute their wares to the
	net-at-large, so the duration of each
	pre-release is necessarily short - which
	should entice manufacturers eager to
	distribute their goods but wary of
	criticism of the functionality of their
	product. A strategic hire from an outfit
	like The Sharper Image combined with a
	professional evangelizing core, perhaps
	led by Guy Kawasaki himself, should
	jump-start the first round of investment
	and allow us to rush an alpha version of
	the service to market.

courtesy of Duke of URL