Clickonce
Inspired
It's one way of beta testing, but it's not the one right way. A real beta test is a rigorous shakedown. New features are thoroughly tested. Old features are verified. There are formal test cases that must be exercised,and there's a comprehensive formal reporting process and a tight schedule you have to keep. A real beta test is a lot of hard and boring work--much more involved than just tossing out the software and seeing what happens.
As cool as it is to get a chance to play around with beta software, I'm glad there's still a dedicated beta team.
Disagree with all of that. I think you are confusing beta with QA.
"New features are thoroughly tested" - QA test plan
"Old features are verified" - QA regression test plan
"formal reporting process and a tight schedule" - Dev/QA methodology/process
"lot of hard and boring work" - Yes, yes it is. Which is why QA resources cost $$.
Figure out a way to do all of that for free by outsourcing QA as a "dedicated beta", forget making AxeFx... write a book and retire.
"much more involved than just tossing out the software and seeing what happens" - That's pretty much exactly what it is. The whole point is to expose issues not found internally. Customers can be leveraged to expose issues via uncommon configurations/use-cases that might not be tested internally. But generally the software has passed internal QA (to some degree, possibly with small set of "known issues") prior to going out as beta.
You can't expect rigor around testing from unpaid resources. Never gonna happen. Hard enough to get rigor from those that you actually pay.. but at least there is accountability and repercussions from those earning $.