friniteshopper
beta testing
When a company has a new product to test, they start with alpha testing - invitation only. 100 or so users are invited to test it before it goes to market.
When "most" of the kinks are ironed out, they take it to market, where more kinks are discovered.
This is "beta" testing.
After these kinks are ironed out, the produc is real.
Alpha and beta are the first two letters of the greek alphabet - it's where we get the word alphabet from, but you probably knew that.
Best to you,
prof