When Microsoft came out with its MP3 player Zune in 2006, the iPod had already been around for five years. The Zune worked well enough, but its brown boxy appearance couldn’t compete with the sleek and futuristic look of the iPod. And although the Zune had some cool features, it had nothing really new to add to the market and was late to the party and therefor simply never stood a chance.
Zune’s coolest feature was the option for users to share songs. Users could transfer songs to each other using wi-fi if they were in the same space. But due to piracy concerns, the songs could only be played three times each before they disappeared from the device. The Zune was around for five years before it, and its pirated songs, disappeared forever, although you can still buy one on eBay. Read on for a flip phone epic flop.
Segway
In 2001, the first Segway Personal Transporter was released and changed the lives of mall cops forever. The release made a lot of waves, and tech leaders from all over got super excited about these fancy scooters and their self-balancing technology. They were embraced by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Apple creator Steve Jobs, who believed that in the future, every person who lived in a city would own a Segway.
Unfortunately, the Segway never really hit its stride, after they were outlawed from using sidewalks because of the danger to pedestrians. They also could not use roads, because their top speed of 12 miles an hour was too slow. Add in the exorbitant cost of $5,000 for a new scooter, and you will understand why transportation has pretty much stayed the same. The high retail price was also an issue for the fashionable fail coming up next.
Oakley THUMP
Sunglass giant Oakley decided to play up the outdoorsy side of their shades by adding a built-in MP3 player. Their reasoning, you can listen to music while riding your bike, jogging or just lounging in the sun. The THUMP, however, was on the pricey side, $249 to $349 depending on if you chose the 256 MB, the 512 MB, or the 1 GB version. Also, they did not look great and the worst part, apparently the sound was extremely weak.
'Oakley also decided to help you keep your music with you in case you were indoors. They offered the sunglasses with the ever-fashionable flip lenses so that you could keep them on inside and look amazing doing it. Unsurprisingly, Oakley THUMP shades were off the market in the blink of an eye. But that wasn’t the only big fail in the world of MP3’s.
HD DVD
As technology progressed, the quality of home video Improved. At this time, DVD was the norm, but when more and more HD TV’s were purchased, DVDs couldn’t keep up with their superior capabilities. Toshiba tried to take over the market with its HD DVD format and players and even partnered up with Microsoft’s popular gaming console Xbox 360.
Sony, however, saw their chance and launched the Blu-ray format. They overtook Toshiba by making deals with the major movie studios, meaning that many of the most popular movies were only available on Blu-ray. They also used their own successful gaming console, the PlayStation 2 and included Blu-ray playback functionality within it. Even now, Blu-ray is the leading format. HD DVD went the way of the dodo only two years after its initial release. Read on to meet YouTube’s older and less successful relative.
Joost
Video calling software Skype was a big hit and its makers were ready to take on their next challenge, letting people watch videos from anywhere on the internet. They named the product Joost and it was launched in 2007, amidst promises of your favorite TV shows on-demand and live sporting events. There are many websites that you know, such as YouTube, Netflix, and Hulu who ended up doing just that and were incredible successes, unfortunately, Joost was not.
The first issue was that Joost users had to download a program to their computer, similarly to Skype. The second and much bigger one was that the program was hard to use and often had video delays. Two years after its launch, Joost was sold and in 2012 it was shut down completely. This web game also had an extremely short life.