Sunday, 22 March 2015

IMVU and its Perpetual Beta

Before we start talking about Perpetual Beta and its reflections to the business, the questions come up to my mind are: how can we make the web functions better? What does the market need? And even you may have some similar questions too. The answer in general is probably listening to the world-wide users and obtaining feedback can make the difference. Today's online businesses are completely different from yesterday's ones. What this means is in the twenty first century, users become more important than organisations in some stages if not all.

What is Perpetual Beta?

The idea of Perpetual Beta is to keep the entire and /or part of the software and the system editable, customisable and improvable by developers when a new feature releases that might not be completely verified. Many operational systems find Perpetual Beta is the fastest method of open source of development. According to Time O'Reilly's statement, "Users must be treated as co-developers, in a reflection of open source development practices. The open source dictum, ‘release early and release often’, in fact has morphed into an even more radical position, ‘the perpetual beta’, in which the product is developed in the open, with new features slipstreamed in on a monthly, weekly, or even daily basis." So I will be talking about a company called IMVU.
IMVU the entertainment company


 
IMVU is world's largest 3D chat and dress up community. It is an online social entertainment, and its online conversation rooms enable users to meet, play games with friends and interact that looks like how people act in the real life scenario. One of their greatest features is 3D chat rooms. This feature permits users to design their own rooms with furniture, decorations and have their desirable music playing. By releasing discussion, comments, idea and even feedback, IMVU monitors users’ activities and develops the website accordingly.

http://www.imvu.com/help/help_iframe.php




- IMVU Engages users as co-developers



http://www.imvu.com/catalog/modules.php?op=modload&name=phpbb2&file=viewtopic.php&t=108667
                                         

IMVU system allows its customers to develop and test their personalised URL panel and pages. Also they can use dynamic tools and programming language to customise, edit and create their own catalog, product page and even background.




In 2013, IMVU released Android smartphone version called IMVU 2 G. The App offered the chance to users to enjoy the following features:

- Allows the user to receive and respond to messages.
- Accepts chat invites and text chat in the chat rooms.
- Accept and send friend requests.
- Enables users to update their profile and upload photos to their IMVU albums.
- Users can see their friends list and stay connected with them.
- Users keep in update with the latest IMVU blog posts.
- Notifies users when it's friend's birthday.

Last but not least, IMVU releases new versions by relying on user interface, and updates its product page constantly. Feedback section is also another opportunity to monitor the user experience to improve applications when required. Thus, I think software has become an open source to serve customers perpetually. What do you think?


Thanks for taking time to read and please leave a comment.
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4 comments:

  1. Anonymous29 March 2015 at 03:48

    Hey Younis,
    A great post mate. You have been an eye opener whenever I visit your new blog. As you stated Perpetual Beta is an excellent method of getting the customers on board as co-developers, because only the users know exactly what they want. Just a question about the IMVU, as I am living away from my family can I create a room where I could arrange setup that resembles my home?

    Thanks,
    Alik

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unknown30 March 2015 at 18:34

    Thanks in advance. In one word, I would say yes you can but not quite similar to your actual room. Please click on http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2134937/Couple-met-got-engaged-game-marry-real-life-despite-looking-like-online-alter-egos.html to get more information.
    I wish you enjoy reading it.
    Regards,

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous31 March 2015 at 02:22

    Hi Younis,

    I completely agree with you, this is surely one hell of an example for Perpetual Beta. I have never before heard of the IMVU and I can honestly say that I am very intrigued. The whole concept sounds amazing, without even concerning the idea of Perpetual Beta, or should I say – its constant open development. But reading your blog post made me think – isn’t this pattern – Perpetual Beta, the inevitable future of all platforms? If we take time to contemplate on this subject little more, I think we will find many more examples of using Perpetual Beta in the history of the Internet. Even though Perpetual Beta wasn’t exploited like it is now, there are plenty examples of its fair usage. Every Google application, such as Gmaps or Gmail, was first in the state of Beta (in the state of testing phase) for a long time. And this was proven to be one of the best approaches when it comes to developing and improving applications and platforms.

    I think that Facebook is also a great example of this approach, because since its beginnings it has improved and changed a lot. Always changing in the way most users want, Facebook is one of the best examples how users can become co-developers. I understand that the pattern of Perpetual Beta is something more advanced and expanded, but these old examples are very useful because they enable us to see how this approach to users as co-developers was slowly developed. As it has proven its benefits, I think we can expect that every new platform in the future should use this approach because Perpetual Beta is great both for users and creators alike. Don’t you agree? With this approach everyone can gain, and no-one needs to lose.

    Thank you for another interesting post, and for introducing me to IMVU!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Unknown1 April 2015 at 19:22

    Nice post!

    Just adding some other practices they do at IMVU to support a continuous deployment that you might find interesting:
    - Continuous integration server to assess automated tests.
    - In order to keep an eye on regressions, IMVU engineering team developed a Cluster immune system that warn them when that happen and also revert it automatically.
    - When a bug appears in any development process, real-time inspecting and also alerting inform IMVU's team.

    As you can see they have a great development on automated tests which provides a great cost reduction to IMVU.

    If you still got some time you could also check my posts! Webthoughtstwopointoo.wordpress.com

    ReplyDelete

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