A user has sent us a screenshot of what appears to be Facebook’s internal dashboard that enables employees to see the beta version of the site. However this may be part of a broader testing with select users who are selected to be part of a “beta” group. We’ve previously written about Facebook’s solicitation of users for testing the Facebook questions product. Now rather than soliciting feedback on products each time around, Facebook could be testing features with a “beta” group.
We’re not quite sure whether or not this was a bug or instead someone getting lucky and being selected for a beta group of users. Considering that we are also able to see the release date of the site (as pictured below), I have a feeling that this was a glitch on Facebook’s end, not an actual feature. Then again, any beta tester of Microsoft products has access to similar version details. I’ve reached out to Facebook for more information and will update the post when I hear back!
wow… 1st on web to report it!!
Comment by Manoj Varghese Mathe — July 26, 2010 @ 12:07 pm
More importantly is what does this 269781 revision have that missing from the production version is what most Facebook users is thinking
269781 – that puts more of an meaning that Facebook is always changing something
Comment by Jamie Ellis — July 26, 2010 @ 12:43 pm
I think that only the ones who applied as beta testers can see this…
Comment by dm — July 26, 2010 @ 2:17 pm
Back when Facebook had the glitch that let users see other people's chat sessions, connecting with Mark Zuckerberg's profile loaded code for a button next to chat with the beta icon in those screenshots. So, this very well could be an internal interface.
@Jamie: True, but those changes could involve backend modifications, performance improvements, security patches, and platform updates, as opposed to obvious UI changes.
Comment by theharmonyguy — July 26, 2010 @ 2:27 pm