The proper use of the Alpha and Beta terminology are to describe early pre-releases of software, for the purpose of making the software available for late-stage acceptance testing.  Alpha and Beta software is, by definition, not ready for prime time.

Of course, this very concept is all rooted in pre-Internet shrink-wrapped software.  The Gold master was a CD, (or a cassette tape etc) that was physically shipped out.  It was critical to get the app into a stable state, because once it shipped it would be expensive to patch it.

With websites, the code that runs them is updated all the time.  I can pretty much guarantee that with any major website you frequent, the code that’s running it this month is slightly different from what was running it last month.  Or yesterday, for that matter.  The entire concept of releases is somewhat nebulous on the web.

But the business world thinks that software terminology is cool.  So we’ve labeled every web 2.0 website “Beta”.  It’s pretty widely understood now that “Beta” means “don’t blame us too hard if there’s bugs”.

In the agency world, there’s an even more shadowy use of these greek letters.  It has become a kind of psychological trick used to get clients to focus on only essential features.  It goes something like this:

Client:  I want a website with 8 million features of dubious value.  And a pony.
Vendor: Okay, okay.  We’ll get you that pony.  But let’s get the real core stuff out the door first.
Client: I want a pony!
Vendor: Okay, well how about we release Alpha this year with the core features, then Beta the year after that.  Then, we can focus on getting that pony for you in the 1.0 release, in two years.
Client: Well, okay.  As long as I get a pony for 1.0, then.

In a sane universe, these would simply be considered different releases: 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0.  But that doesn’t score the proper political points.  All that stuff that the client read about in Wired magazine has to make it into 1.0 in their minds, so the agency responds by re-defining what 1.0 means.  And that means abusing the Alpha and Beta terms.