Tech Pipe Dreams

The Mini Disk

I remember in Art class, in 1992, our teacher would often comment about her Mini Disk collection. How the audio quality was better than plain old unreliable Cd's. That this was going to revolutionise the standard. I remember looking through her binder of music wondering what this new technology was.

I remember wondering if it would catch on, as Cd's were fairly new at that time too. Well it didn't and that's why it made my list.

AOL

In 1999 I actually paid for AOL dial up. Partly because I suffered from a mental lapse in judgement and partly because of the convenience of popping in that new AOL CD that I received in the mail. After the free trial was done, I decided, out of laziness to keep the service for 3 months. 29$ a month for dial up was absolutely crazy. 

Their marketing scheme of sending millions of Cd's with their horrible browser to everyone on earth guaranteed someone would sign up with them.

All this finally ended and mother earth took a huge sigh of relief.

Hey breaking down that much plastic takes time baby!

Netscape Navigator

I know a lot of people out there might be fans of Netscape but having used it and supported it for Alcatel. I can say I am not a fan. Not a fan at all. It would crash and wouldn't load sometimes. All these legal battles with Microsoft over providing something useful for free with windows to browse web pages kind of got on my nerves too.  It also didn't follow standard web page development rules. Web designers had to code pages specifically for it. This wasn't a problem when this browser was popular however once people started using other browsers this started to become a huge problem. Navigator we the way of the cuckoo and got bought out by AOL of all companies.

Netscape Navigator's Usage Over Time

Video Phones

In the late 90's there was a big push for video phones. The problem was at that time most Internet connections were only able to distribute choppy low quality video. As a result the phones failed miserably because it also required the person your calling to have a video phone as well.

The other factor was probably the creep out factor. No one wants to see grandma grab the phone naked forgetting that the video was enabled.

"Hi Grandma... Holly Shit!"

So these are my 4 picks for worlds largest tech pipe dreams.