Filed under: Software, Cool tools, Productivity, Internet Tools, Beta Beat
Skitch opens doors with invite-only public beta, begins sending out copies
We may have been playing with Skitch and teasing you with screenshot galleries since the app's debut at Macworld '07, but today is the day that some of you can finally start teasing someone else for a change. That's right: the plasq crew have officially opened the flood gates and have begun sending out Skitch beta copies to users who signed up (you can now sign up at the official Skitch site). Not everyone will receive their copy right away, mind you: by 'invite-only public beta,' I mean that copies will more or less be sent out at a moderate but steady pace and only to those who sign up, as plasq wants to make sure they can maintain control over testing (after all: it is still a beta) and ensure their slick MySkitch photo sharing service can handle the load.
That said, if you get a copy, start testing away! It's a beta, so it'll act funny and it just might eat the family cat. Just remember: Skitch will be a commercial app when released as a 1.0 (though no official word on price yet), and the plasq crew is still kicking around whether they need to split some services or features off into a Pro version, so send in that feedback.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Marc said 5:57PM on 6-14-2007
Can you spaire an invite please?
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Dave Chartier said 6:16PM on 6-14-2007
@2 Marc: The only way to get in on the beta is if you head over to the Skitch website (linked in this post) and sign up. If you already have, plasq will be in touch with you soon.
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TheDukester said 6:34PM on 6-14-2007
Nowhere in this post does it actually mention what this program **DOES.** Very poor. I'll say it again: TUAW needs an editor.
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pentumforever said 6:50PM on 6-14-2007
I'm missing that information too, and thats the case in almost all of your posts about shareware. Its mentioned that there is a beta or an update but there aren't even 3 lines for those of us that don't know the application in question.
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Catt said 7:34PM on 6-14-2007
Folks the links in the post gives a pretty good explanation of what Skitch is about. if that is still not enough check out the video on the Skitch website.
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Rod said 7:37PM on 6-14-2007
It's basically an app to easily enable image copyright infringement, as far as I can tell. It seems to provide drag and drop for images on a web page into email and im as well as on the fly editing. It seems kinda cool from a technical perspective, but a total waste if you're, say, not sixteen.
And the skitch site is as bad as David... I had to watch their "how to use skitch" video to figure out WTF it actually does. And then I was underwhelmed. Pass.
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Dave Chartier said 7:49PM on 6-14-2007
#3 TheDukester: If I littered this post with any more links, someone else would start complaining there's too many links and it's hard to read.
So then, if I spend too much time re-explaining what Skitch is, even though we've been talking about it non-stop since January, readers would yell at me for re-hashing and re-hashing the same thing over and over again.
So then, if we start cutting down on re-hashing a topic that we've been talking about a lot and simply provide a few links to past posts that explain what Skitch does, readers are going to start complaining that we aren't telling them wha-
and then we come full circle.
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Dave Chartier said 7:58PM on 6-14-2007
#6 Rod: Skitch really doesn't do much more to enable copyright infringement than, say MS Paint. In fact, Photoshop/Elements users probably have a lot more power to infringe on copyright, since Photoshop has far more powerful tools for removing any identifying data, metadata, watermarks, etc.
That said, Skitch is primarily designed to be a screensharing tool. Take a snapshot of a website or a particular app you're using, maybe even something going wrong or perhaps demoing how to do something for a friend across the country or the world, and you can easily upload and share that image to MySkitch, Flickr, .Mac or your own FTP.
Most of the software on our computers can be used for good or evil, so I find it hard to write off Skitch as simply a tool for pirates and those who disrespect copyrights. *How* people use a tool is the deciding factor here.
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CarbonFree said 8:33PM on 6-14-2007
Oh, how I despise invite-only _anything_. It only creates elitism.
Case in point: OiNK.
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Dave Chartier said 8:48PM on 6-14-2007
#9 CarbonFree: While invite-only offerings are partly a tool to generate buzz about a product, it also helps the company roll out their product at a steady pace so their services and support staff don't get overwhelmed. Here are a couple scnearios:
1) Company rolls out a beta product too quickly and one user discovers a fairly show-stopping bug. Instead of fewer users hitting the brick wall, a ton more people do and the product receives a huge ding on its reputation from a much broader portion of its users. Also: with this much larger community of beta testers all running into this major problem, it makes it that much more difficult for their support department - assuming they have support personell aside from the developers themselves - to solve the problem for everyone.
2) A company rolls a beta product and service (remember: part of Skitch is a web-based, hosted picture sharing service) out too quickly, and (in plasq's case) their servers fail from the load and the picture sharing services goes belly up.
Those are just a couple of reasons - yes, again: *besides* marketing a product (whoever said companies can't market their products?) - why companies, especially ones that are just slightly smaller than Google, decide to roll out managed, invite-only betas like this.
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Kballs said 9:25PM on 6-14-2007
"So then, if I spend too much time re-explaining what Skitch is, even though we've been talking about it non-stop since January,"
Yeah, 5 whole posts, including this one. Non-stop, indeed. Please forgive those of us who don't visit obsessively every single day. That's less than one post a month.
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Ben the Dog said 2:40AM on 6-15-2007
Jeez what a bunch of whiners
I don't understand why you don't have time to click on the links provided to find out what the software does, but you do have time to tap out a post and point out that you're too busy to read TUAW every day or whine that the post should have incorporated the linked info.
If you don't like it, don't read it. If you think you can do better, Mr Jobs has made it very easy for you to put together your own Apple blog complete with RSS feed.
Run along now.
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Kballs said 3:22AM on 6-15-2007
Interesting, Ben. I'm guessing you've never complained about a network TV show. After all, you don't have to watch them, they don't cost you anything, and plenty of cheap video cameras are available if you want to make your own show.
Um, run along?
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Tommyjolly said 4:53PM on 6-15-2007
I'm in the Beta testing phase, and I quite like what I've seen so far. I'm not sure if it will have an impact on my usual workflow or not, but I'm still fiddling around with it.
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Ben the Dog said 2:49AM on 6-18-2007
#13 - If I don't like a television series then I don't watch it. If I don't like the news feed of a television programme or a website, I find an alternative one. There's a subtle difference between the two scenarios.
I can use smaller words if you like.
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