No, the F&F beta started a few weeks ago (two or three) and is still happening. The general beta has started, in theory, but they've given access to so few people it's almost as if it hasn't.
Semantics, I suppose. The friends and family test did begin earlier this year in an alpha state. They just didn't identify it as either an alpha or beta phase at the time.
I know a lot of people who have made it into the closed beta.
01 December 2011: Microsoft licenses Windows under Apache license.
02 December 2011: Apple announces merger with Exxon-Mobile. All iOS devices now powered by gasoline. On completely unrelated news, price of gasoline jumps from $4/galon to $20.
10 June 2011: Duke Nukem Forever released - https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Development_o...
12 July 2011: PuTTY 0.61 released - http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/changes.ht...
20 July 2011: "Signs of life from GNU Hurd" - https://lwn.net/Articles/452296/
28 July 2011: GNU Emacs developers discover that Emacs has been violating the GPL since 2009 - https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2011-07/msg01...
26 September 2011: Textmate 2 Alpha announced
I joked about this on my blog earlier this year, but wasn't expecting it to happen.