Doug Gross at CNN has a list of the top 10 tech product failures in recent years (hat tip to Greg Aharonian’s Patnews newsletter). The list includes:
- LaserDisc
- Apple Newton
- Google Wave
- Segway
- Microsoft KIN
- Pets.com
- TwitterPeak
- Atari Jaguar
- HD-DVD
- Virtual Reality
Some great ideas and even some cool technology went into most of these products, but they failed for various reasons. Wrong business model, easy or vastly superior alternatives, low-cost “good enough” alternatives, benefits too narrow, company out of touch with the market, poor execution, premature launch, failure to learn and iterate to respond to the market, etc. Their failures important for other innovators to consider, for there are many things that can stand between you and innovation success. Success is more likely to favor the the flexible few who learn from the initial failure and have funds left to iterate to give the market what is really wanted.
I was surprised to see Virtual Reality on the failed tech list, but it certainly hasn’t lived up to all the hype. Here is CNN’s take:
Virtual Reality
Remember when we were on the verge of living high-tech virtual lives?
When optic sensors, VR helmets and power gloves were supposed to have us living in “The Matrix?” Or at least on the Holodeck?
Turns out, the promises were a little ahead of their time.
“The technology of the 1980s was not mature enough,” says Stephen Ellis, who continues hacking away at virtual reality at NASA’s Ames Research Center.
The main effect of commercial VR-tech that’s rolled out since then has largely been making the user want to throw up.
Virtual reality may have a pathway similar to RFID (radiofrequency identification technology). Years of hype hindered by high costs and inadequate execution, but successful niches will be found where its impact can become enormous as the technology becomes useful and affordable for those applications, while not being nearly as ubiquitous as pundits once projected. There is something there, making it far too early to write off virtual reality or several other of CNN’s top 10 failures as genuine failures. For those who can learn from the marketplace and adjust business models and technology to exploit genuine unmet needs, there are exciting opportunities that we may see shortly.