Re: Technology flops of 2008
Google Lively
In July Google launched Google Lively, a virtual reality service with lot of fanfare. Come November, and the company announced its decision to shut down the service by the end of the year, reflecting Lively's inability to stand out from the rest of the virtual reality crowd.
The pack of faux worlds is led by Second Life, where people deploy animated alter egos known as avatars to pursue digital fantasies.
The management concluded that it needed to sharpen its focus on its primary business of Internet search and advertising as the company's revenue growth decelerates in the deteriorating economy.
"We've also always accepted that when you take these kinds of risks not every bet is going to pay off," Google wrote in a blog post.
Hotmail retreats
Bowing to customer `revolt' Microsoft this month rolled back its recent changes to Windows Live Hotmail it unveiled in September.
The Hotmail update did not impress users, who complained that they were unable to access their folders and emails and had difficulty forwarding and replying to messages. Others said that the new version did not sit well with their screen size.
"We heard many users say that they had trouble navigating through Hotmail, especially if they had a smaller monitor," Microsoft's Hotmail team wrote on its company blog. "We've decided to make a significant change in our product: Hotmail will scroll like classic Hotmail."
Users can revert to Hotmail's earlier scrolling behavior by clicking the "Inbox" folder, clicking "Options" in the upper right, then under "Reading pane settings," selecting "Off."
Earlier in November Microsoft said that it would not revert to the earlier look-and-feel, or offer, as it once did, a so-called classic interface as well as the newer design. "We can't provide two fast, secure reliable experiences, so we have decided to just keep the new version," Mike Schackwitz, lead program manager for Hotmail, said in a blog post November 7.
Yahoo Mash and Yahoo 360
Here's another Yahoo service which got smashed in front of competition. Yahoo's social networking site Mash was shutdown after one year of its launch. The social site was supposedly pitched in competition to Facebook.
Yahoo community manager reportedly sent messages to Mash members that said “Thank you for trying out our Mash Beta service. We hope you had fun with it. Please note that we will shutdown Mash on September 29, 2008. As a result, your current profile on Mash will no longer be available.”
Yahoo's other social networking experiments also buckled up under competition within a few months of their launch, like the site called `Mixd'. Other than Mash and Mixd, Yahoo's another venture into the social networking scenario --Yahoo 360 also had the curtains pulled down on it this year.
Mash was launched in September 2007 while the Yahoo 360 was launched in 2005.
Satyam
The year 2008 would have ended for India's fourth largest IT company, Satyam, just like it will for most other IT cos with worries of ongoing economic gloom. However, there's much more on Satyam plate to tackle now.
It trouble started on December 16 when Satyam announced acquisition of Maytas Infrastructure for $1.6 billion (Rs 7658-crore). Institutional investors strongly opposed the move. Satyam's ADR loses 50 per ent on NYSE. Faced with shareholder's revolt and heavy criticism over corporate governance issues, in the early hours of December 17 the company withdrew the proposal. But the scrip loses over 30 per cent in India.
Come December 23, story breaks down of World Bank banning Satyam for eight years over bribery and corruption charges. Ramalinga's family loses half a billion dollars in a week as stock crashes.
Then as Christmas gift to Satyam Computer Services' chairman Raju, a long standing member of the Satyam board, Dr Mangalam Srinivasan resigns. This is the first public sign of internal dissensions in the Satyam board, following its aborted bid to acquire Maytas Properties and Maytas Infra -- Raju's sons' companies.
Spore videogame
Popular Mechanics called it the year's No 2 breakthrough product and Fortune heralded it as the videogame of the year. However, Electronic Arts' "Spore" failed to impress consumers.
Gamers criticised the game's intrusive copy protection scheme and termed its game play as a 'disappointment'. Many lamented that the game lacked spark.