Note the inclusion of Foursquare: "Introduced in 2009, the site has only a million users — a drop in the bucket compared with Facebook, expected to soon reach 500 million." Far too soon to say 4SQ is a crap 'invention' - and surely 'idea' is the correct term for a lot of what's on that list.
I don't get it. Several of these are technologically very cool with terrible marketing and/or bad application coughsegway[0]cough. Others are "hahaha look at that silly fad (auto-tuning, victorian dresses) aren't we so much cooler now!". A couple, like betamax are the losers in a format war or feature war, not really bad themselves, just on the losing side earning a hatred from those who "wasted the money on one" (and forever including them in these lists for vindictive catharsis). Finally a small number like the pinto's explosion rate, or hydrogen blimps, are actually bad inventions.
This whole article feels kind of wantonly ignorant. Like the cool kids at school finding something, anything really, to mock rather than participating. Or like all the "that sounds like faggy talk" stuff from the movie Idiocracy.
[0] Creating too much hype which results in mass disappointment is just as bad as traditional "what were they thinking" bad marketing.
Are hydrogen blimps actually a bad invention? They were perfectly useful for many years, transported a whole lot of people a whole long way in an age when it was the best and most comfortable way to travel long distances. There was one high-profile accident of which we just happen to have footage, but I'm not sure if the death rate per passenger mile is any worse than that of 1920s-30s planes.
Segways, meanwhile, are a perfectly reasonable invention plus a bit of stupid marketing hype which media outlets were dumb enough to buy into. But the mall security guard market alone is enough to justify the existence of the Segway.
This reads more like a "Things I Don't Like" list rather than a "Worst Inventions" list. Admittedly some of those things were bad ideas, but Farmville and Crocs are making a lot of money.
I'm confused. The first sentence says the list is comprised of "some of the world's bright ideas that just didn't work out", yet includes several extremely successful products/services (e.g. Farmville, Foursquare, Bumpits, Tamagotchis, Crocs, etc.).
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 35.4 ms ] threadNot counting robots, I think my blog has two users... but my wife probably doesn't check it very often.
This whole article feels kind of wantonly ignorant. Like the cool kids at school finding something, anything really, to mock rather than participating. Or like all the "that sounds like faggy talk" stuff from the movie Idiocracy.
[0] Creating too much hype which results in mass disappointment is just as bad as traditional "what were they thinking" bad marketing.
Segways, meanwhile, are a perfectly reasonable invention plus a bit of stupid marketing hype which media outlets were dumb enough to buy into. But the mall security guard market alone is enough to justify the existence of the Segway.
Some of the inventions are really not that bad. It's more of a lighthearted take than anything else.