The portion bolded in my original post is the only part about WOW. Here's the article:
For Some Beta Testers, It's About Buzz, Not Bugs
By JULIET CHUNG
Published: July 22, 2004
SAMANTHA DAVID knew she was on the A-list in late April when she got an early invitation to test Gmail, Google's new free e-mail service. But Ms. David, a 36-year-old Web designer in Bethesda, Md., was not the only one who had heard the buzz about Gmail. She was soon besieged with requests for invitations from would-be testers.
"People were lining up for them," said Ms. David, who estimates that she has passed out 36 invitations through her blog at LiveJournal.com and through
http://www.gmailswap.com, a Web site where users can trade virtually anything for invitations. "It was like being at school again - it's what all the cool kids had."
Testing of early or "beta" versions of software used to be limited to serious computer users, who devoted hours to working with flawed programs and reporting bugs to developers. Nowadays, though, the tester's focus is often less on improving new software and more on just being among the first to have it. It is a shift that some companies have embraced, selecting testers in ways that seem intended to maximize hype and anticipation.
"There's a lot of cachet associated with being an early adopter," said Nicco Mele, 26, a former Internet strategist for Howard Dean's presidential campaign who runs the Internet consulting firm EchoDitto. "It's similar to how, every time you're in a meeting, everyone wants to show off who's got the coolest new phone."
"It plays into being at the vanguard of a very fast-moving industry," Mr. Mele added.
Gmail is the most prominent recent example of this phenomenon, with demand for test accounts - currently available by invitation from other testers - creating some unusual markets. Gmail invitations have been auctioned on eBay, at one point reaching prices as high as $200, according to some reports. Those with a less mercenary bent have frequented sites like gmail4troops.com and gmail4u.blogspot .com, both of which link those desiring invitations to those possessing a surplus. Gmailswap.com has been particularly popular, with more than 78,000 posting requests for invitations since its creation in mid-May, said Sean Michaels, the site's 22-year-old creator.
Ms. David, who received her invitation from an online acquaintance who works at Google, has filled several requests for swaps. Her bounty includes two batches of homemade cookies, a 14-inch string of tikki lights and even a commitment from a Utah chiropractor to take on a low-income patient.
Part of Gmail's popularity can no doubt be attributed to the popularity of Google itself, and to the invitation-only feature of its trial run. A spokesman declined to say when Google would make the e-mail service more widely available. But it is not the only test version of software whose limited release has met with great demand.
More than three million people registered their e-mail addresses with Napster in hopes of obtaining one of 20,000 randomly allocated tester slots when it rolled out a beta version of its downloadable-music subscription service in 2002, according to information published by the company. The 200,000 available downloads of an upgrade to the Kazaa file-sharing service in 2003 were snapped up in days, according to Sharman Networks, which owns the application.
Would-be testers are flocking to sites like eBay, where early test accounts for Blizzard Entertainment's popular World of Warcraft computer game were recently going for more than $500. They are even trying bribery: Haden Blackman, the LucasArts producer for Star Wars Galaxies, another popular game, says desperate players regularly offer hundreds of dollars for a testing slot.
Experts say the growing interest in obtaining beta software - preshipped, usually flawed releases that companies distribute to test performances under real conditions - is driven partly by the human instinct to carve out and maintain status, particularly as the size of the online community has swelled. Compared with the tiny, intimate online community of the Internet's infancy, today's users comprise a sprawling, anonymous colossus.
In this environment, "beta testing becomes a way that people measure who they are and where they belong," said Sherry Turkle, a professor of the social studies of science and technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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Clifford Nass, a professor of communications at Stanford University who studies social responses to technology, said this is particularly true for well-educated, affluent people who shy away from flaunting their status. "Having special knowledge of technology is the latest way they demonstrate who they are," he said.
Of course, some people line up to test software for reasons other than status. Adam Swaney, a junior at Purdue University who has beta tested computer games for years, says the adventure of sniffing out bugs rivals the pleasure he takes in playing actual games.
"The major bugs are pretty hard to find, so it's a challenge," said Mr. Swaney, 22, who estimates that he spends three to four hours a day testing World of Warcraft on weekdays and five to six hours a day on weekends.
Early testing also gives him a chance to influence the game's development. Mr. Swaney recalls telling developers that Ironforge, the capital city of the dwarves in this massively multiplayer online role-playing game, felt like a ghost town. In the most recent version of the game, he said, patrolling guards and street vendors lend the capital a pleasant, bustling atmosphere.
Wendy Dunham said she found herself testing Octiv's Volume Logic plug-in for iTunes, which adjusts the volume of audio files, after she took one too many flying leaps off her couch to turn down the volume on her stereo.
"The soundtrack to 'Titanic' has got some really quiet parts and all of a sudden you get to a crescendo, and it can really shock you," said Ms. Dunham, a Web designer from Hopkins, Minn. The plug-in not only evens out the wide variations in volume, she said, "it actually brings out things in the music that you didn't even know were there."
Gmail's organizational threading feature - which groups e-mail sent back and forth as conversations - was a major reason Yanni Loukissas, 27, a graduate student in architecture at M.I.T., sought an invitation from a friend.
"People here prefer to e-mail you rather than cross the hall and come into your office, so it's helpful having that history of exchanges easily at hand," he said.
Still, beta testing is often less about testing and improving software than it is about flaunting status. Savvy companies seem to have seized upon this impulse, turning chances to acquire beta versions into marketing opportunities. It is not unusual for them to reward their most loyal customers with beta slots. In allocating betas for Star Wars Galaxies, for example, LucasArts gives the most active members of the game's community accounts before turning to a random lottery system. Veteran players are likely to be invited as testers, Mr. Blackman said, as are users who post prolifically on the forum.
Blizzard Entertainment has a similar method of distributing testing slots for World of Warcraft, making a handful of accounts available as giveaways at fan sites. Beta testers are added on in phases as server capacity allows, so the speculation that precedes each new round of e-mail to newly selected gamers has the not-unwelcome effect of enhancing the game's appeal.
"Every time, it's kind of like a build-up of anticipation, and then a rush of disappointment when you look and there's nothing in your in-box," said Graydon Larson-Rolf, 17, a high school junior in Pewaukee, Wis., who has waited in vain three times for an invitation to test World of Warcraft. "There's always the worry that I received the e-mail and it didn't show up."
Dr. Nass, who calls beta testing "a marketing thing," said the process had only recently become highly commercialized. What paved the way for this, he said, is that consumers have become accustomed to flawed software, so companies can issue patches and upgrades without angering them.
"There's no reason to carefully distinguish between your beta testers and your non-beta testers," he said. "They're always beta testing, so the recruitment criteria are exactly the criteria for selling: figure out the people who are most likely to buy it."
Using beta releases to stir anticipation before a product's final release is a strategy that Google may well have perfected. Gmail's peer-to-peer invitation feature, an electronic example of the word-of-mouth technique known as viral marketing, has drawn considerable media attention and consumer interest. Given that its performance is reported to be relatively smooth, some question just how much testing is actually occurring.
"Gmail feels like a final release," said Noah Eisenkraft, 21, a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania who follows the computer industry. "I haven't run into things where it explodes or smoke comes out of the computer. I think it might be much more of a marketing tool than an actual beta test in the traditional sense."
But if some beta versions live by hype and buzz, they die by it as well. As with all status accessories, digital status symbols come stamped with a sell-by date. Gmail accounts were lucky to go for $5 last week on eBay.
"Once everyone has been invited it's no longer cool to be invited," Mr. Loukissas said. "I mean, it works the same way as fashion: once everyone wears a trucker hat, it's over."
by Lyion » Thu Jul 22, 2004 10:31 am 
