I did enterprise software in my past life, and am curious about what you need to do to get ready for public beta of a consumer website. OK - there's the obvious - have some alpha testers - make sure the code is working. But, I'm curious about what kind of support resources are needed, hints/tips from past experience...
Well, the release early and release often mantra still stands. Make something basic but that works well and get it out - tell people about it. Tell us about it. Take the feedback you get and if you agree adopt it and grow this way. Run a blog on your site and let people know about your plans.<p>Have a read of this. I found it interesting:<p><a href="http://www.niallkennedy.com/blog/2006/05/mark-fletcher-bloglines-onelist.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.niallkennedy.com/blog/2006/05/mark-fletcher-blogl...</a>
(A) Make it really obvious how to contact you via email.<p>(B) Answer the emails... Quickly, positively, and gratefully.<p>(C) Create a FAQ and make that easy to find.<p>(D) Update the FAQ as you answer emails.<p>(E) Update your site based on the feedback.