People in the Internet and tech world have a tendency to think of the beta tag as something cool, like a product so cutting edge that it hasn’t even left that mythical beta stage. Of course the poster child for this is Google’s GMail product, which is still in beta and appears to be ordained to never leave that status. But perceptions within a community are often different than the perceptions outside a community, and that is often the case in business development partnerships with traditional media, where “beta” all too often means “not ready.”

This was brought home recently when I was on a conference call between a client and a division of Viacom. As the presentation began, the very first question was, “When will you be out of beta?” The implication was obvious, the media professional was really asking, “When will your product be ready for a big company like ours to adopt it?” Such things can generally be overcome on a conference call by outlining a specific timeline for when the beta period will end, but the danger for companies without experience in dealing with traditional media is that they won’t even get that far–the potential partner won’t even take your call or meeting because they have no interest in working with platforms or services that aren’t ready.

The result is that the beta tag on a product or service can send a completely different message than you may think it does as a web or mobile executive. What you consider as a label that connotes “cutting edge” will often be received as meaning “not ready” or “buggy.” It is very telling that Google’s enterprise platform, Google Apps For Business, is one of the few non-search Google products that is missing the beta tag.  Like Google, you should carefully consider your beta tag when planning a timeline of business development that involves enterprise partners. It just may end up being a stumbling block, and the last thing any young company needs is more difficulty in creating partnerships.