Celebrating Beta Labs 1-year birthday

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Celebrating Beta Labs 1-year birthday

Wed, 2008-04-16 11:34

Today, we are celebrating* the 1-year birthday of Nokia Beta Labs. Go us!!!

Looking back at my email archives from April 2007, I found this humble email from the founder of Beta Labs, announcing the launch of it to a couple of Nokia insiders:

"As planned, this is a soft launch. No press releases, not OPK giving announcements to Reuters. But yes: please spread the word internally and externally to friendly bloggers and influencers."

Darn right we did. Looking at digital archives, I was apparently the lucky one to break the news first (I didn't work for Beta Labs then), followed by Stephen Johnston and Janne Jalkanen. And the story started spreading among the bloggers, including the usual suspects like Darla and rising stars like Stefan Constantinescu. Despite the whole concept being quite simple, people inside and outside Nokia seemed to just love it. And the rest is history. Or at least the beginning of a history...

So what have we achieved so far? Let's see:

4+18 application launches

huge usage growth: ~1M page views, ~200k downloads, and thousands of comments / month already

vibrant user community: experimenting with new apps, sharing thoughts, and helping each other

early signs of a massive culture change inside Nokia, towards co-creation and beta culture

Due to this early success, we have also had some challenges:

Our current systems don't scale. There's pressing need to a major overhaul to the Beta Labs website and feedback systems.

A single Mr.Beta doesn't scale. I'm not an omniscient expert on all Beta Labs apps, and I can't answer to most of your questions (see: Getting rid of the last middleman). Also, as Nokia is taking beta trials and co-creation increasingly seriously, my personal working bandwidth is going increasingly into work "behind the curtains".

But these are good problems to have. And we have some good news: the operative Beta Labs personnel has now been doubled*. Our new Master's Thesis worker Ilkka Peltola just introduced himself. Let's make him feel welcome: go and drop him a comment!!

* = this invitation comes a bit late, I know, but does anybody want to go and have an after-work beer (at Helsinki Finland) to celebrate the birthday?
** = Beta Labs is a virtual organization, consisting of me and Ilkka as the operational team, and dozens of people in various support roles. Together, we do our best to help Nokia R&D teams (hundreds or thousands of people) and the beloved user community (~100k people and counting) to shape the future together.

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Comments

Submitted by on 18-04-2008 06:37.

Hooray!

Submitted by on 19-04-2008 22:54.

congratulations for the great job during the first year. I love your applications. Go on.

Submitted by on 21-04-2008 07:17.

Thanks for All Guys!!!
Happy Birthday!!!

Submitted by on 21-04-2008 08:19.

Happy Birthday!! :)

Submitted by on 16-04-2008 15:56.

Happy birthday!

In March 2007 I discovered S60 with a N73. Some time after (1,5 month) I discovered Beta Labs. Now (with an E90, E50, N73 and waiting for a N95 8Gb and something like an E71) I became a Nokia admirer.

Now I advise everyone to by Nokia and visit regularly Beta Labs. Nokia is having a great moment and Beta Labs shows it pretty well.

Thank you for your work!

Submitted by on 16-04-2008 12:59.

Paljon onnea vaan...

Submitted by on 16-04-2008 11:50.

Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday dear Beta Labs
Happy Birthday to you...

Here's to another year of a Bigger / Better Beta labs :D

Submitted by on 16-04-2008 12:42.

Happy Birthday...Beta is the base of innovations in Nokia

Submitted by on 16-04-2008 12:54.

Great! Happy birthday Beta Labs! Wish you nothing but success in projects to come :)

Submitted by on 16-04-2008 13:01.

Happy Birthday! May the next year be even better than the last!

You want to reduce your role and scale? Turn the Beta Labs Blog into the Beta Labs Blog Network! Think of Microsoft's MSDN Network or Sun's Blogger Network where they have individual employees blogging.

Let the people developing the beta applications start their own blog and let them handle their beta testers directly, but contain all the blogs into a single blog network.

I think we're going to need another meeting, you still owe me that beer! ;-)

Submitted by on 16-04-2008 13:06.

Thanks everyone!

> Let the people developing the beta applications start their own blog

You know, Stefan, we just might try this :)

Submitted by on 16-04-2008 15:01.

Happy Birthday!

Submitted by on 16-04-2008 16:00.

Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Nokia Beta Labs, Happy Birthday to YOU!

Submitted by on 16-04-2008 17:02.

@ Stefan

Love the bloging idea, Don't think every project needs a separate blog but a post from a programmer, designer or (day I say it!) someone from P.R./Marketing, once a product graduates would be nice. But that's a job for Tommi to work out ;)

Submitted by on 16-04-2008 17:33.

Happy Birthday!!!
Congratulations Tommi and good luck to Ilkka

Submitted by on 16-04-2008 18:30.

This is your birthday song, it isn't very long. *clap clap clap*

Submitted by on 16-04-2008 18:52.

I would like to know one thing. In one year, quite all of us installed and commented many good or bad apps from NBL. What app do you still use, I'm curious to know. For me Internet Radio is still working and working everyday. A poll maybe?

Submitted by on 16-04-2008 19:40.

Wa-hey! Congratulations :-D

Submitted by on 17-04-2008 06:09.

This is the best site Nokia has to offer, for me anyway. Your apps are great.

Congrats on one year.

Cheers.

Submitted by on 17-04-2008 21:12.

Happy Birthday! And keep up the good work !

Submitted by on 18-04-2008 04:32.

Wishing you many more happy returns of the day....Keep Going. Best years are ahead of you ;-)

Submitted by on 18-04-2008 03:48.

Cheers! Not exactly an active poster, but I am a frequent visiter of the site, and really love it! Happy Birthday!

Submitted by on 01-10-2008 19:29.

I'm thinking I will go with the Ultimate Arcade II design... I need to find someone to build the cabinet as I don't do wood work & live in a small apartment & have no tools... I'm looking at family members at the moment, hopefully that will work, but we'll see...