Nearly twelve months and counting. That’s the first time I saw Skitch at Macworld Expo. It started off as a tease and now has been a private beta for almost a year. When we say private, we mean private. Not that we’re big names or anything, but we’d at least think we could get in on this beta after sending a couple of requests in. We haven’t. From what it sounds like, only those with connections or well known names get in on this. For example, Merlin Mann of Mac Break Weekly has been using the beta from the start. He went on and on (listen…about 42 minutes in) about how awesome this application was…back in the early summer. We don’t doubt Merlin’s impressions, in fact, more times than not, we agree nearly 100% on like matters, but what has happened in those other six months? You really can’t blame Leopard as Plasq had to have a beta of that to work with. Even if not, compatibility issues shouldn’t have been too difficult to sort out. My SnapNDrag works just fine without an update for Leopard.

We love Merlin (we miss you on MBW) and no offense to him, but man, Plasq, where’s the goods? How long can one company have a product in beta? Publicly? Shesh, Apple’s Leopard was in beta about the same amount of time and it’s a freakin’ entire operating system! What’s your excuse?

From what I saw at Macworld Expo and what I’ve read and heard, Skitch sounds to be the best screen capture utility made. Note I didn’t say out there. It’s caused me to hold off on buying other products, but at this rate, it’s pretty much time to move on and forget. I’m sure Skitch will see daylight, maybe, at Macworld Expo in January, but after this long delay, it just doesn’t seem to be that big of a deal anymore. It may have been much wiser for Plasq to keep its mouth shut on this last year and then surprised us with it this year. Basic marketing trick, guys.