diff --git a/app/helpers/application_helper.rb b/app/helpers/application_helper.rb
index 778e43355..de84b804e 100644
--- a/app/helpers/application_helper.rb
+++ b/app/helpers/application_helper.rb
@@ -10,13 +10,9 @@ module ApplicationHelper
     content_tag(:abbr, time.to_s, options.merge(:title => time.iso8601)) if time
   end
 
-  def page_title text=nil
-    title = ""
-    if text.blank?
-      title = "#{current_user.name}" if current_user
-    else
-      title = "#{text}"
-    end
+  def page_title(text=nil)
+    return text unless text.blank?
+    current_user ? current_user.name : t("application.helper.diaspora_alpha")
   end
 
   def aspects_with_post aspects, post
diff --git a/config/locales/diaspora/en.yml b/config/locales/diaspora/en.yml
index 0d0d8af8d..af94f78da 100644
--- a/config/locales/diaspora/en.yml
+++ b/config/locales/diaspora/en.yml
@@ -74,6 +74,7 @@ en:
       unknown_person: "unknown person"
       video_title:
         unknown: "Unknown Video Title"
+      diaspora_alpha: "DIASPORA* ALPHA"
   aspects:
     zero: "no aspects"
     one: "1 aspect"
diff --git a/spec/helpers/application_helper_spec.rb b/spec/helpers/application_helper_spec.rb
index 4a2ac74ce..005b3fd97 100644
--- a/spec/helpers/application_helper_spec.rb
+++ b/spec/helpers/application_helper_spec.rb
@@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ describe ApplicationHelper do
     end
   end
 
-  describe "markdownify" do
+  describe "#markdownify" do
     describe "autolinks" do
       it "should not allow basic XSS/HTML" do
         markdownify("<script>alert('XSS is evil')</script>").should == "&lt;script&gt;alert('XSS is evil')&lt;/script&gt;"
@@ -301,4 +301,31 @@ describe ApplicationHelper do
       end
     end
   end
+
+  describe "#page_title" do
+    before do
+      def current_user
+        @current_user
+      end
+    end
+
+    context "passed blank text" do
+      it "returns current_user.name if logged in" do
+        @current_user = @user
+        page_title.should == @user.name
+      end
+
+      it "returns default title if not logged in" do
+        @current_user = nil
+        page_title.should == I18n.t("application.helper.diaspora_alpha")
+      end
+    end
+
+    context "passed text" do
+      it "returns the text" do
+        text = "This is the title"
+        page_title(text).should == text
+      end
+    end
+  end
 end