Technology's History Lessons

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9012345&pageNumber=1

Great article on technology's biggest flops....or were they. So many of them listed here have almost come full circle into a new iteration or at least a derivative of.

I love reading history or review articles, it makes you realise in hindsight what is and what wasn't important.

Picking just three of my favourites;

Apple Newton - great technology, great implementation, sold relatively well, without it we wouldn't have Palm, Treo or now HTC. Considering the lineage between this and the newest version of Palmtops whats not to love. I'm planning on ordering a HTC Advantage to supplement my HTC 8525 any day now http://www.europe.htc.com/products/htcadvantage.html

Beenz - Virtual web currency, eg I write something-you pay me beenz to read it, I use beenz to download a music track or pay for the rights to use a photograph or similar.

We need this now more than ever - the internet has fallen into a defacto kind of ad sponsored virtual currency in that content is paid via 'sponsorship' (and not just web content check out my post on spiceworks last week) I'm actually working on something to facilitate this into a new level (shhhh :) at the end of the day people still need to pay rent and eat. We (web 2.0 providers) cant plan on buyouts forever.

I think beenz was a great concept at the right time and even had the right backing and funding but just missed by the slightest of margins. Google may not be what it is today if it had taken off.

Push Technology - Sure Shoutcast has fallen but who are we kidding, between RSS and XML about 50% of what I read online each day is pushed in some format or another from somewhere else before it gets to my browser and it's only going to get bigger.

Now for my pick of the biggest and the baddest of the bunch - The Net PC.

Yep I'm early on the curve and no I don't know of anything specific yet but.... Net PC or a derivative is going to come back bigger and badder then ever. If you've got some funny money lying around this is where I would be looking to take a punt. I'll keep my reasoning for another more extensive post but I'm happy to take any bets from any takers.


Cheers,
Dean