The L.A. Times Names Its Favorite Flops of the Year 145
A reader writes "Salvador Rodriguez and Deborah Netburn of The Los Angeles Times have a rundown of the top 10 tech gaffes of 2012. From their article: 'As 2012 comes to a close we take a look back at the biggest "oops" moments of the last year. Whether it was an advertising misstep (Facebook's "Chair" commercial), or a product released before it was ready (Apple Maps), or just an idea that was ill-received (homeless men as Wi-Fi hotspots), we tried to compose a list of the times when the major players lost control of the narrative. It's also a reminder that everyone makes mistakes--even exacting tech companies.'"
Samsung 'Puppy' Video (Score:4, Interesting)
Seriously? (Score:5, Interesting)
They manage to not put Windows 8 on that list? It deserves the top spot by far. And I say this as a C# dev!
Re:Seriously? (Score:3, Interesting)
sorry, mis-read. Windows 8 i wouldnt say is a flop, its a flop in waiting, or a success in waiting. its too early to tell as of yet if it will or will not be a flop as its market share is still increasing. http://betanews.com/2012/12/03/like-it-or-not-windows-8-usage-rises/ [betanews.com], its also increasing pretty quickly.
Re:Facebook IPO (Score:5, Interesting)
Facebook IPO wasnt a gaffe, it was a hedge fund scam. facebook was advised to give their IPO at a much higher value than they knew it could sustain, and the advisers hedged against facebook. made a lot of rich people richer, and fucked over some other rich people, and also fucked over some not so rich people.
Well, this is what gets me about the "Facebook IPO was a failure" argument. An IPO takes place for the benefit of the existing investors and stakeholders, whether or not that happens to be at the expense of anyone buying in.
Of course, normally one has to convince the would-be investors that it's also in *their* interest to do so, and obviously if you can be shown to have actually defrauded them, then that might not work out so well for you. But that doesn't change the basic principle- the people organising the IPO are doing so to benefit the existing stakeholders. From that somewhat amoral (but truthful) point of view, the Facebook IPO was a roaring success- for them.
4G is missing. LTE (Score:1, Interesting)
4G was supposed to be a high speed standard that allowed all users with a 4G enabled phone to get those high speeds. but, turns out that there are at least 3 specifications in use, and major manufacturers are picking sides (apple with LTE), making your new phone incompatible with your current network, forcing you to switch.
iphone5, i wouldn't put it on as a flop, but still an embarrassment, an embarrassment that apple assumed that their customers were stupid enough to buy the 4S from them again, just because they changed the number from 4S to 5 and re-released the same phone, and the pain is, they were right, their customers are that stupid.
Apple Maps - what went wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
The consensus in the SEO industry is that Apple bought all low-end data sources for business data. Somebody thought they were saving money.
Point-of-interest map data wasn't that great, either, so presumably Apple bought low-end data there, too. Map data cleanup is expensive and labor-intensive. Because business info isn't a substantial revenue generator for Apple, it's not surprising that Apple cut costs there. Over at Apple, business info drives search and ads, so it's crucial to the revenue stream.
The reverse is true for phones and tablets - Apple makes most of their money from phones and tablets, while for Google the whole Android thing generates a small fraction of revenue.
Re:Facebook IPO (Score:4, Interesting)
The response was justified, apple took away what most people use as their GPS device, and replaced it with one that doesnt work, and doesnt work in spectacular fashion.