• Best product flops and missteps from history: How many of these blunders do you remember?

Blockbuster Video

Blockbuster turned down a sale offer from Netflix for $50 million in the year 2000. What a mistake that was.

  • Years of Operation: 1985 - 2010 Fate: Competition from Netflix and other video-on-demand services eventually lead to Blockbuster’s demise. The company was forced to file for bankruptcy in 2010. Best known for: Home Movie and Game rental

Syquest

SyQuest was an early manufacturer of hard disk drives for personal computers that was made redundant by writeable CDs and the rise of FTP file transfers.

  • Years of Operation: 1982 - 2009 Fate: SyQuest struggled in the 1990s due to the popularity of Zip drives and writeable CDs. Sales declined and in 1998 SyQuest filed for bankruptcy in late 1998. Best Known for: Removable cartridge data storage

Iomega

Iomega made zip drives and suffered with the popularity of CDs. It released MP3 players and external hard drives to compete but none was successful enough. 

  • Years of operation: 1980 - 2013 Fate: bought by EMC in 2008 Best known for: the ZIP drive (pictured)

Napster

Napster was originally founded as a pioneering peer-to-peer file-sharing service that allowed users to share digital files, usually songs, over the internet.

  • Years of Operation: 1999 - 2001 Fate: Forced to shut in 2001 to comply with a US copyright infringement ruling

Compaq

Compaq struggled to compete with computing giants HP and Dell. It was then acquired by HP in 2002 for $25 billion.

  • Years of Operation: 1982 - 2013 Fate: Compaq was acquired for US$25 billion by HP in 2002 Best Known For: Personal computers

Boo.com

Boo.com was a British company that launched in 1999 and sold branded fashion products over the internet. It failed badly during the dot-com bust at the time.

  • Years of Operation: 1999-2000 Fate: The company spent $135 million of venture capital in just 18 months and it was placed into receivership on 18 May 2000 and liquidated Best Known for: Online Fashion and being one of the first spectacular failures of the dot-com boom

3DFX interactive

3dfx Interactive was a big name in the gaming world in the 1990s. It suffered in later years and eventually was acquired by Nvidia.

  • Years of Operation: 1994 - 2002 Fate: 3dfx rapidly declined in the late 1990s and was acquired by Nvidia, mostly for intellectual property rights after going bankrupt in 2002.” Best known for: Graphics chips

DeLorean Motor Co.

DeLorean had a rough time of it, despite the Back to the Future fame and it went bankrupt in 1982. Less than 10 years after it started business.

  • Years of Operation: 1975-1982 Fate: Ended in receivership and bankruptcy in 1982.  Best know for: DMC-12 car (as used in Back To The Future)

Wang Laboratories

Wang Laboratories failed to adapt and change with the times. Failing to realise the threat from personal computers with word processing software.

  • Years of Operation: 1951 - 2008 Fate: Wang Labs likely failed because it specialised in computers for word processing and did not adapt to the era of general-purpose personal computers in the 1980s. Best known for: Word processors and personal computers

Pets.com

Pets.com was internet business that sold pet supplies online during the dot-com boom. Poor financial management would eventually spell the company’s demise. 

  • Years of Operation: 1998 - 2001 Fate: The company lost money on most of its sales and as a result had a brief existence becoming another victim of the dot-com bubble.  Best known For: Online pet supplies

WebVan

  • Year of Operation: 1996 - 2001 Fate: The company lost over $800 million and was forced to shut down in 2001 with 2,000 employees losing their jobs as a result. Best known for: Online Grocery delivery business

Kozmo

This site promised free one-hour delivery of products like videos games, DVDs, music and more. Way ahead of its time and failed when the dot-com bubble burst. 

  • Years of Operation: 1998 - 2001 Fate: Another company to fail after the burst of the dot-com bubble, Kozmo was forced to shut its doors in 2001. Best Known For: Online delivery service

Friends Reunited

The Friends Reunited site was originally created as a social networking website aimed at reuniting old friends. Sadly killed off by the popularity of Facebook.

  • Years of Operation: 1999 - 2016 Fate: In 2008, the site announced it had lost 47% of unique users in the previous 12 months. In 2016, Friends Reunited closed down after 16 years of operation. Best known for: Social Networking

GeoCities

GeoCities was a web hosting service originally founded in 1994. Years later it struggled to turn a profit and was closed by owner Yahoo! in 2009.

  • Years of Operation: 1994 - 2009 (Yahoo Geocities Japan still exists) Fate: In 2009 roughly ten years after GeoCities was purchased by Yahoo! it was shut down despite still having 38 million users. Best known for: Early Web Hosting Service

Broadcast.com

An Internet radio company that quickly gained online popularity but later would be shut down in 2002.

  • Years of Operation: 1995 - 2002 Fate: In 1999, Yahoo! acquired broadcast.com for $5.7 billion then shut the service down three years later.  Best known for: Internet radio

Polaroid

Polaroid was an American company originally founded in 1937 and best known for its instant film and cameras. Changing camera technology dealt blows to Polaroid.

  • Years of Operation: 1937 - 2008 Fate: The Polaroid Corporation was declared bankrupt in 2001 and the “new” Polaroid that came from the ashes was itself declared bankrupt in 2008. Best known for: Instant Cameras

Sinclair

Financial troubles in the 1980s would lead the company to sell its entire computer product range and its name to Amstrad for £5 million in 1986. 

  • Years of Operation:  1973 - Present (one man company now) Fate: Sinclair saw various successes and failures over the years. Due to financial difficulties in 1985, the company so its rights to Amstrad. Sinclair Research Ltd still exists as a one-man company.  Best known for: ZX Spectrum / C5 Electric Vehicle

Kodak

Kodak is likely one of the most well-known and oldest companies on this list of businesses to fail. Another one to fail to keep up with the times.

  • Years of Operation: 1888 - present Fate: In 2012, Kodak filed for bankruptcy and ould stop making digital cameras, pocket video cameras and digital picture frames and focus on the corporate digital imaging market. Later Kodak sold many of its patents to different companies including Apple, Google, Facebook, and more. Best Known For: Film and Cameras

Netscape

Netscape was one of the first and perhaps most popular browsers of the early days of the world wide web. It had 90% market share at one point.

  • Years of Operation: 1994 - 1999 Fate: Netscape was acquired by AOL but released all the source code for its browser beforehand and created the Mozilla Organization that would later go on to release Firefox. Netscape was discontinued as a browser in 2008 but the brand continued to exist and is currently a non-operating subsidiary of Facebook. Best known for: Internet Browser

AltaVista

AltaVista was a search engine established in 1995 that would later become one of the most popular search engines of the time.

  • Years of Operation: 1995 - 2013 Fate: AltaVista was one of the most popular search engines in the early days, so much so that it was purchased by Yahoo! in 2003 but would be closed in 2013.  Best Know For: Search Engine

Palm

Palm made personal digital assistants (PDAs) that would ultimately be rendered obsolete by newer tech.

  • Years of Operation: 1992 - 2011 Fate: In 2010, Palm was purchased by HP but in 2011 poor sales would force HP to end production of Palm products and the brand.  Best known for: Handheld devices

  • A brief history of Palm

Pebble

Pebble first made waves online in 2012 by becoming the most funded Kickstarter campaign of the time but went on to struggle in later years.

  • Years of Operation: 2012 - 2016 Fate: In 2016, Pebble was forced to shut down and refunded Kickstarter backers due to financial issues. Pebble’s intellectual property was later purchased by Fitbit who also hired some of the Pebble staff. Best known for: Smartwatches

Minolta

  • Years of Operation: 1928 - 2006 (when it stopped selling cameras) Fate: In 2003, Minolta merged with Konica Corporation to form Konica Minolta. In 2006, the company sold a portion of its SLR camera business to Sony and pulled out of the cameras and photographic film business altogether.  Best Known For: Cameras

The Globe.com

  • Years of Operation: 1994 - 2008 Fate: In 1999 the dot-com bubble claimed a new victim and theGlobe.com’s stock price suffered badly. By 2000, the company had failed to turn a profit and was forced to close its flagship site and lay off most of its workforce. Best known for: Early Social Networking

Gizmondo

  • Years of operation: 2005 - 2006 Fate: Before its launch, the Gizmondo had high expectations and was thought capable of competing against Nintendo and Sony. In the end, it was an utter failure. With less than 25,000 units sold, it was named by GamePro as the worst selling handheld console in history. In 2006, the company filed for bankruptcy. During its time it had racked up over $300 million in debt.  Best Known For: Handheld Games Console

etoys.com

  • Years of Operation: 1997 - 2009 Fate: The company went bankrupt in 2001 but the domain etoys.com lived on and is now owned by Toys “R” Us. Best Known For: Online Toy Seller

Vertu

Vertu was a British manufacturer of luxury handmade mobile phones. The devices were often seen as technologically lacking and not much more than bling.

  • Years of Operation: 1998 - 2017 Fate: In 2017, the company collapsed leaving its residual staff of 200 unpaid and unemployed. Best Known For: Ultra Luxury Mobile Phones

Klout

  • Years of Operation: 2008 - 2018 Fate: The social media influence platform ceased existing in 2018 after being acquired by Lithium in 2014. That company launched its own service and no longer saw the need to keep Klout running.  Best Known For: A tool for measuring your social media reach/influence.

StumbleUpon

  • Years of Operation: 2001 - 2018 Fate: The company behind StumbleUpon began crafting a new tool known as Mix.com and saw fit to transition StumbleUpon accounts and data over to that new services.   Best Known For: Being a “discovery and advertisement engine” that allowed users to discover new parts of the web, one click at a time.

Flooz

  • Years of Operation: 1998 - 2001 Fate: Adoption and appeal of Flooz by customers proved limited and its closure in 2001 was perceived as an early indicator of the dot-com bust. Best known for: Online Currency

Maplin

  • Years of Operation: 1976 - 2018? Fate: Like many high street retailers before it, Maplin began feeling the pinch in 2018 and went into administration at the start of that year.  Best Known For: Selling a range of electronics, but also specialist equipment for hobbyists

Jawbone

Working in a very niche market that would later be dominated by Fitbit, Garmin and Apple, Jawbone started to suffer and eventually went into liquidation.

  • Years of Operation: 1999 - 2017 Fate: Jawbone struggled with competing in the tough market of wearables and went into liquidation in 2017  Best Known For: Creating Bluetooth earpieces, wireless speakers and fitness trackers

Comet

  • Years of Operation: 1933 - 2012 Fate: Comet one likely one of the biggest loses of electronic retail stores in the UK Best Known For: Selling products as an “out-of-town discount warehouse” in the United Kingdom

Path

  • Years of Operation: 2010 - 2018 Fate: After being acquired by South Korean messaging company Daum Kakao in 2015, Path shut its doors to the public in 2018.  Best Known For: Being a social media site designed to rival Facebook with a heavy focus on mobile user-experience and small groups of friends.

Theranos

  • Years of Operation: 2003 - 2018 Fate: Dissolved and liquidated with founders charged with fraud.  Best Known For: Raised funding for “breakthrough” health tech, which amounted to nothing.

Secret

  • Years of Operation: 2014 - 2015 Fate: Secret was seen as a craze that soon fizzled out.  Best Known For: A twist on social media that allowed users to share messages anonymously

Quibi

  • Years of Operation: 2018-2020 Fate: Quibi was another streaming service that launched into an already saturated market and couldn’t get a foothold.  Best Known For: Short form video