Source: Duncan Hull via Flickr .
3. Facebook can’t get anything right after going public
Remember when Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) was the hottest IPO of the new millennium? Feels like so long ago, doesn’t it? It seems like the social leader can do no right since its IPO went so, so wrong.
Graph Search, the company’s first major post-IPO product launch, was hyped to the moon early this year as an alternative to the existing search options. If you survey your friends — the majority of whom probably have a Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) account — you’re not likely to find a single person who’s actually used Graph Search. The only thing it seems good at finding has been criticism.
Then there was Home, the social-OS overlay of Android that proved to be so unwanted that the only true “Facebook phone” went from launch to a $0.99 price point to removal from the market in about two months. Barely a million people have downloaded the app, which is widely panned by downloaders on the Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) Play store. Most recently, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) launched Instagram Video, a me-too short-form video function that’s been widely panned as a Vine copycat that’s just a few seconds too long.
Even the companies closely associated with Facebook have flopped since the social network’s IPO last year. Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) has declined from an all-time high of 311 monthly active users in the quarter following Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)’s IPO to 253 million active users, and daily active users actually peaked at 72 million in the quarter of the IPO and have now fallen by nearly 30%. The company recently had to lay off hundreds of employees as it faces the fact that clicking on cows just ain’t what it used to be.
Source: kudumomo via Flickr.
2. 3-D TV was a product nobody really wanted
Can a product (first launched in 2010) that’s sold more than 40 million units in a year be a failure? Well, yes, if no one uses the product for its unique purpose. People hate wearing glasses, and for many people, 3-D technology simply gives them a headache, or worse — 3-D TVs come with warning labels not to let young children watch. The purported benefits of 3-D video gaming have also failed to materialize, as adding a 3-D layer to your favorite action shooter tends to make it less clear and precise. Even The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) pulled out of supporting the format on its ESPN network. If sports fans don’t want to watch a LeBron James dunk in stereo-vision, what hope does the technology have to win over the rest of us?
Source: LG via Flickr.
1. Next-gen consoles crash and burn
The Nintendo Co., Ltd (ADR) (OTCMKTS:NTDOY) Wii U was already an unmitigated failure before the unmitigated failure that was the Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) Xbox One launch event. Only 3 million of the new consoles had been sold as of last month. Its monthly sales are running well below those of both the Xbox 360 and Sony Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:SNE)‘s PlayStation 3, even though both of those are more than five years old.
And where do we start with the Xbox One? Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)’s now getting dinged by its “Xbox 180,” as the company was forced to walk back a number of hated policies. Gone is the always-on Internet connection. Discs can be reused. Regional restrictions have been lifted. Still, this backtracking doesn’t seem to have soothed the rabid outrage that poured forth against Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) after its launch event, which spent so little time talking about, you know, playing games that it’s become just another running joke in the clown show that is the Xbox One.
Don’t expect the PS4 to be the savior of consoles, either. There’s nothing revolutionary in Sony Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:SNE)’s entrant, and where the prior generation of consoles only had to be better than their predecessors, today’s consoles compete with cloud-based gaming (in the form of Valve’s Steam service and others), mobile gaming, and a renewed surge of smaller console makers like Ouya that prefer to build low-cost hardware to run the Android OS. Gaming is thriving on more platforms and in more diverse forms than it has in decades. Game consoles? Not so much.
Source: William Grootonk via Flickr.
Do you agree with the selection of these flops? Got any others you’d like to add? Let the world know with a comment.
The article The 5 Biggest Tech Failures of the Past 5 Years originally appeared on Fool.com is written by Alex Planes.
Fool contributor Alex Planes holds no financial position in any company mentioned here. Add him on Google+ or follow him on Twitter, @TMFBiggles, for more insight into markets, history, and technology.The Motley Fool recommends Apple, Facebook, Google, Nintendo, and Walt Disney and owns shares of Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Walt Disney.
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