Tag: Failure

It seems every major shift in home video formatting brings with it a battle. Most famously, there was Betamax vs VHS in the 1980s. Then, there was VCDs vs DVDs in the 1990s. More recently, there was the great showdown between Blu-ray vs HD DVD in the 2000s. The last of these — the infamous […]

The Sega Dreamcast was the first console to introduce online play. As the most powerful console of its generation, Dreamcast had some instant classic games. So, why was it a failure – and not just a failure but the company’s last console ever? Multiple factors led to the downfall of the Dreamcast and Sega consoles. […]

Key Points Google+ was a social media platform launched in 2011. It had many standard features of social media platforms, like being able to post photos, post status messages, update statuses, and stream. Google+ ultimately failed due to several critical design flaws that exposed user information through its API. Google+ Currents, the last bastion of […]

Key Points In 2004, PayPal engineer Jeremy Stoppelman came down with the flu during a business trip to San Francisco. Unable to find any online reviews in San Francisco on a good medical center to treat it, he decided to launch one of his own. Five years after its growth, Yelp had 4.5 million reviews […]

Key Facts Palm Inc. actually played a key role in the smartphone sector. An emphasis on productivity rather than entertainment prevented the organization from thriving. Delays in the manufacturing process prevented them from being able to capitalize on the success of their earlier smartphones. Palm, Inc. is behind the production of an array of mobile […]

Key Points A year before Google was birthed, the internet had Ask Jeeves. It made the search process more personal by introducing a friendly face. Ask Jeeves was perceived as a friendly, easy-to-use alternative to some of the more intimidating search engines on the internet at the time. Before Ask Jeeves failed, they were in […]

Key Points Compaq was a computer manufacturer that produced high-quality personal computers at affordable prices. Compaq was founded in 1982 and, only five years later, was a fortune 500 company with 1 billion in revenue. Compaq ultimately failed because of a risky acquisition (DEC) and price wars with large competitors like DELL and Intel. When […]

Key Points: Gateway countered the notion that tech companies were sleek, futuristic, or humorless by starting on a cattle farm and maintaining that charming farming look for their entire history. Gateway was hailed as a working-class hero in the 80’s and 90’s, offering affordable products that made them a trustworthy brand. Gateway failed to maintain […]

If you stepped back in time to the early 1990s, the idea of a single computer disk holding more than a few megabytes of data would have been considered quite futuristic. All of that changed when a company known as Iomega introduced its “Zip drives.” With the ability to hold 100MB of data on a […]

Key Points DeLorean DMC-12 was a sports car featuring gull-wing doors and a stainless steel body.\ The DeLorean DMC-12 was an iconic car, but it failed spectacularly. It had a lot of hype, but the market crash of the 1980s killed any chance it had of success. DeLorean ultimately failed due to several factors, including […]

Key Facts Solyndra was the first beneficiary of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. . The abundance of polysilicon whose prohibitive costs has been a selling point of the company, proved detrimental to it. Delays in the manufacturing process prevented them from being able to capitalize on the success of their earlier smartphones. Clean Energy. […]

Key Points Google Glass is a pair of smart glasses that are wearable and voice-activated. The device was released in 2013 and displayed information to the user in a head-up display. Google Glass ultimately failed due to price, battery issues and functionality. To get ahead in tech, a company needs to be constantly innovating, evolving, […]

Key Points Napster was a music peer-to-peer file-sharing computer service created in 1999. Napster hit a record number of 80 million registered users in under two years. Napster ultimately failed due to complications with piracy and copywriting laws. From the early 90s till the dot-com boom, Napster was among the most debated controversies on the […]

Key Points MySpace was a popular social networking service launched in 2003. At its prime, MySpace was worth 12 billion dollars and had 20 million users. MySpace eventually failed because it targeted a niche audience who reached college age just as other sites like Facebook were reaching popularity, resulting in a mass shift to new […]

Key Points Jawbone was founded in 1999 and is best known for its quality headphones and wireless speakers. Jawbone introduced its UP series of fitness trackers, which popularized the idea that you could track your heartbeat and health via a fashion-forward accessory. Jawbone failed because a flaw in the product forced them to miss the […]

Key Facts Elizabeth Holmes first forwarded the idea of Theranos while studying Chemical Engineering at Stanford University. Theranos was backed by powerful investors with Henry Kissinger, William Perry, and George Shultz on its board. Following an investigation by Wall Street Journal investigative journalist John Carreyrou, Elizabeth Holmes was found to have falsified the nature of […]

Atari is a popular platform amongst retro gamers who enjoy the simpler things in life. The Atari 2600, initially branded as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS,) was a staple of many gamers’ childhoods. So those gamers were sad to see the platform wither into obscurity. Few people know why the Atari platform dissolved, […]

Not many companies have the privilege of being synonymous with their product. Kleenex, Xerox, ChapStick, Post-Its… these brands and their products are so popular and recognizable that they apply to all tissues, all photocopies, all lip balms, and all sticky notes, regardless of if they’re made by the brand or not. Polaroid is another one […]

When Netscape’s web browser bowed out, it went down hard. Even if you don’t recognize the name today — or simply don’t remember the kind of power it had back in the day — Netscape’s dominance was like nothing else at the time. That’s what made its eventual demise so shocking. What exactly happened to […]

Key Points Sega Corporation is a Japanese multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. It was founded in 1940. In 1969, Sega was sold to the American conglomerate Gulf and Western Industries. It was later renamed Sega Enterprises Inc. Sega failed to appeal to their customer’s primal needs, underestimated the competition, and allowed […]

Key Points: Microsoft’s attempt to compete with Apple’s iPod was the Zune. Perhaps the main reason Zune failed was because it was technologically behind the iPod by a few years. Today, the MP3 player has pretty much become obsolete as a stand alone device. For those who don’t remember, it’s hard to truly describe just […]

Key Points: Blockbuster was once the only way you could rent a movie and watch it at home – and dominated the industry in the 90s and early 2000s. A brick and mortar store with a familiar logo and layout, Blockbuster was a hub of many neighborhoods and provided a new means of family fun […]

5 Facts About The Windows Phone While Windows Phones are dead in the water by now, there’s no reason not to look back at the timeline of the Windows Phone. Perhaps doing so will grant some other insights into why the platform was a resounding failure. 2022 is the last year that Microsoft will support […]

Key Points Nokia was the first brand to dominate the mobile phone industry. Nokia was killed off by competitors like Samsung and Apple. Three different companies merged, leading to the inception of the Nokia Corporation.   Although a failed company, many of us still remember Nokia and its classic phones. Nokia was the first brand to […]