This post is just to reintroduce the beta channel to those who are new to it. The beta channel is a section of GoWEB where we test new features before taking them to the full public. The beta homepage can always be reached at http://gowebnow.net/beta.

The beta channel is not limited to the homepage. We also use it to test new features in other sections of the site. Overall, beta pages are simply a copy of the official page with extra features. If the new features work well and are given a good evaluation by testers, those features would be promoted to the official public page and the beta page would continue to evolve.

Generally, beta pages do NOT break the core functionality of the site. For example, if you’re using our beta homepage, you would continue to get up-to-date news headlines and weather. You should also see the same Featured Content that is carried on the official homepage, and you would still have access to the themes from the official page.

Finally, we need to mention that the themes on the beta pages work in conjunction with the themes on the official pages.  Therefore, if I go to the beta homepage and set the theme to “Beach”, when I come back to the official homepage, the theme will be set to “Beach” on that page as well. If we test new themes on the beta page, they will still be applied to the public page even though they don’t show up in the public list of themes.  We’ve coded it this way because users should be able to seamlessly move between different versions of the homepage, without having to maintain separate settings for each. We want the beta homepage (as well as the Lite homepage) to feel like a new layout, instead of a new page. So remember, the same theme will be used across the homepage, beta homepage and Lite homepage.

Happy testing.