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The music industry is suffering.  Failures and mistakes ascending into the digital age have led to seven straight years of declining sales.  But when music industry luminaries talk about the need for new business models, it’s hard to believe they imagined one option would be setting out a tip jar. That, however, is more or less, exactly what one of the most critically lauded and influential bands of the past decade has decided to do.

Radiohead,  the British band that gained global fame in the late 90’s, announced today that they will offer a full digital cut of their 7th studio album on their website for whatever price listeners feel like paying.  They’ll become the Priceline of the music industry.

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Beta Tests in software development used to be sandboxes for limited 3rd party testing. That was before Web 2.0, before Internet based services and features became the new face of the software industry.  Now, increasingly Beta has become an ambiguous term. 

Today, Beta’s often start out limited, as invitation-only tests, but they morph into full fledged, publicly accessible services.  Beta has become code for “we may still change it” and “it may still break when you use it.”  It’s  a disclaimer for anything goes.  Company’s like Google have stuck the label on their services for years.  It’s no longer a clear marker, nor a clear meaning.

At Google, Larry Page, has said, “If it’s on there for five years because we think we’re going to make major changes for five years, that’s fine. It’s really a messaging and branding thing."

So, Beta doesn’t mean much as a word anymore. That doesn’t mean there aren’t notable milestones.  The transition from invitation-only to public access is a good one.  When a software product is officially unleashed on the world, it’s crossed a bridge.  Joost, the Internet peer to peer video service, passed that marker this weekend. Click to Read More