Curate the Museum of Failures

gizmo81

The BBC Breakfast Show had a segment this morning on The Museum Of Failure in Sweden.

http://museumoffailure.se/#museum

Museum of Failure is a collection of interesting innovation failures. The majority of all innovation projects fail and the museum showcases these failures to provide visitors a fascinating learning experience.

The collection consists of over seventy failed products and services from around the world. Every item provides unique insight into the risky business of innovation.

I think this is a great idea, though no companies have supported the museum, afraid to tarnish their brands, but should we be proud of failures as Samuel Beckett once said;

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better."

So, what would you put in the Museum of Failures?

The Museum had A McDonalds Deluxe Burger, Colgate Lasagne, Coffee Coca-Cola etc

My first one is Mini Discs. I got the player as a teenager and it was very expensive, now it just sits on a shelf in the garage covered in dust.

Lady is a tramp

Fidget Spinners. So overrated. Bring back the good old Yoyo! Or Pogs. Pogs were great!

stimpson

gizmo81 wrote: »

My first one is Mini Discs. I got the player as a teenager and it was very expensive, now it just sits on a shelf in the garage covered in dust.

I never got the hate for mini discs. Near CD quality but the convienece of a tape. In the days before recordable CDs they were fantastic. I had a compact system with MD, a head unit in the car and a portable one. And hundreds of multicoloured discs. Just because they are obsolete doesn't mean they were a failure.

Mine would be electric cars. There were 8 Nissan leafs bought or imported last month.

gizmo81

No I liked them and making my mixed tapes, but I mean they just didn't take off.

stimpson wrote: »

I never got the hate for mini discs. Near CD quality but the convienece of a tape. In the days before recordable CDs they were fantastic. I had a compact system with MD, a head unit in the car and a portable one. And hundreds of multicoloured discs. Just because they are obsolete doesn't mean they were a failure.

Mine would be electric cars. There were 8 Nissan leafs bought it imported last month.

The J Stands for Jay

I still use minidiscs. The Walkman runs off one AA battery, and seems to use very little lower. I actually use batteries that no longer power other things round the house. Makes me feel that little but more environmentally friendly. It also saves the battery on my phone.

silverharp

Is Sweden one of the exhibits?

Ted Plain

I remember having a can of Pepsi Crystal.

These are two Irish ones I can think of:

Club 90. It was lemonade with a hint of mint. Tasty too, from what I can remember. Launched in 1985 or 86, I'd say. Didn't sell well and wasn't available for long.

Carroll's Compass cigarettes. They were 100mm fags and the box had some sort of geometric design on it. I remember someone smoking them during Italia 90.

By the way, for anyone that finds this sort of thing interesting, there is a fantastic place in London called The Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising. Well worth a visit if you're there.

gizmo81

Club 90 sounds like the 7up Mojito they had out last summer. Not for me.

Jordy Verrill wrote: »

I remember having a can of Pepsi Crystal.

These are two Irish ones I can think of:

Club 90. It was lemonade with a hint of mint. Tasty too, from what I can remember. Launched in 1985 or 86, I'd say. Didn't sell well and wasn't available for long.

Carroll's Compass cigarettes. They were 100mm fags and the box had some sort of geometric design on it. I remember someone smoking them during Italia 90.

By the way, for anyone that finds this sort of thing interesting, there is a fantastic place in London called The Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising. Well worth a visit if you're there.

The J Stands for Jay

Lady is a tramp wrote: »

Fidget Spinners. So overrated. Bring back the good old Yoyo! Or Pogs. Pogs were great!

"No, I don't want to see your Pog collection!"

DontThankMe

Motorola's attempt at creating a worldwide mobile phone service was a spectacular failure.

Iridium, the global satellite phone company backed by Motorola (MOT), filed for bankruptcy in 1999, after the company had spent $5 billion to build and launch its infrastructure of satellites to provide worldwide wireless phone service. At the time, it was one of the 20 largest bankruptcies in US history. To work properly, the system needed 66 satellites. The creation of this enormous system forced the company to default on $1.5 billion of debt. The service had been such a failure that it only had 10,000 subscribers. This was, in part, due to technical difficulties with Iridium's first handsets. According to a Dartmouth Tuck Business School case study on the history of Iridium in 1998, the company forecast that it would have 500,000 subscribers by the following year. But, the service was expensive for customers, and the cellular phone business had started to take hold as its infrastructure was built out in most of the large developed countries. An Iridium handset cost $3,000 and talk time was as much as $5 a minute. Cellular service was not as broadly available, but it was far less expensive.Technology difficulties also made the service unpopular. Because Iridium's technology depended on line-of-sight between the phone antenna and the orbiting satellite, subscribers were unable to use the phone inside moving cars, inside buildings, and in many urban areas.

gramar

Tayto chocolate bars.

Eponymous

The Sinclair C5

Microsoft Zune

Kodak Disc Cameras/Film: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_film

Breo beer. People calling it "white Guinness" didn't really help.

The J Stands for Jay

Eponymous wrote: »

The Sinclair C5

Microsoft Zune

Kodak Disc ,/Film: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_film

Breo beer. People calling it "white Guinness" didn't really help.

I remember someone in my class buying a second hand disc film camera at some charity thing in the early 1990s. It came with a roll of 110 film...

MRnotlob606

Ray Darcy's career

silverharp

DontThankMe wrote: »

Motorola's attempt at creating a worldwide mobile phone service was a spectacular failure.

Iridium, the global satellite phone company backed by Motorola (MOT), filed for bankruptcy in 1999, after the company had spent $5 billion to build and launch its infrastructure of satellites to provide worldwide wireless phone service. At the time, it was one of the 20 largest bankruptcies in US history. To work properly, the system needed 66 satellites. The creation of this enormous system forced the company to default on $1.5 billion of debt. The service had been such a failure that it only had 10,000 subscribers. This was, in part, due to technical difficulties with Iridium's first handsets. According to a Dartmouth Tuck Business School case study on the history of Iridium in 1998, the company forecast that it would have 500,000 subscribers by the following year. But, the service was expensive for customers, and the cellular phone business had started to take hold as its infrastructure was built out in most of the large developed countries. An Iridium handset cost $3,000 and talk time was as much as $5 a minute. Cellular service was not as broadly available, but it was far less expensive.Technology difficulties also made the service unpopular. Because Iridium's technology depended on line-of-sight between the phone antenna and the orbiting satellite, subscribers were unable to use the phone inside moving cars, inside buildings, and in many urban areas.

what were the satellites used for after?

GavRedKing

gizmo81 wrote: »

So, what would you put in the Museum of Failures?

The DeLorean DMC12. It was an utter shambles of a car that found cult status for appearing in the Back To The Future movies.

Your Face

Prussia.

gizmo81

Tayto Chocolate.

I'm trying to think of more food ones.

s3rtvdbwfj81ch

Eponymous wrote: »

Microsoft Zune

I own one of these, still going strong!

valoren

New Coke.

andekwarhola

Breo.

osarusan

Steorn and their Orbo should be front and centre.

Ri_Nollaig

stimpson wrote: »

I never got the hate for mini discs. Near CD quality but the convienece of a tape. In the days before recordable CDs they were fantastic. I had a compact system with MD, a head unit in the car and a portable one. And hundreds of multicoloured discs. Just because they are obsolete doesn't mean they were a failure.

Mine would be electric cars. There were 8 Nissan leafs bought or imported last month.

Minidiscs were great but they arrived too late really against MP3s and once costs for the latter dropped they were never able to compete.
Also Sony were very restrictive on the brand.

A bit early on the 'electric cars as a failure' no?

The J Stands for Jay

MRnotlob606 wrote: »

Ray Darcy's career

I was going to like this, but then remembered how much he gets paid, and how much he seems to enjoy his work.

Wibbs

GavRedKing wrote: »

The DeLorean DMC12. It was an utter shambles of a car that found cult status for appearing in the Back To The Future movies.

Horrible yoke to drive too. Woefully underpowered.

Apple Newton and associated products. Great idea that came too early and then missed the boat entirely.

OS/2.

Guinness light.

Segway.

Ford Edsel.

Google Glass.

Honourable mention to Betamax. Much better product than VHS(and still used today in industry), but failed to take off in the consumer market.

WHIP IT!

Wibbs wrote: »

Horrible yoke to drive too. Woefully underpowered.

Apple Newton and associated products. Great idea that came too early and then missed the boat entirely.

OS/2.

Guinness light.

Segway.

Ford Edsel.

Google Glass.

Honourable mention to Betamax. Much better product than VHS(and still used today in industry), but failed to take off in the consumer market.

Is this different to 'Guinness Mid Strength'? Not a Guinness drinker, but mid-strength has a kinda niche in sport clubs - as in, people can have a pint after their game of golf/tennis/five-a-side etc and still be ok to drive.... dunno if that makes it a success or not!

Noveight

Google Plus, once tipped to take a slice of the cake from Facebook. Went down like a lead balloon.

RayM

Tab Clear. All the flavour of Coca Cola (allegedly), but clear. Why?

stimpson

Ri_Nollaig wrote: »

A bit early on the 'electric cars as a failure' no?

OK, let's just say the Nissan Leaf. I read a thread on the EV forum about a new owner driving Dublin to Cavan and had to stop twice to charge. An hours journey taking 2 1/2 hours. Yet he was still saying it was so smooth and that he really didn't mind driving at 50mph. Right so.

The_Valeyard

Your Face wrote: »

Prussia.

?

They under the genius of Bismarck United the German states to form...... Germany.

Hector Savage

I wanna see that plastic bike wobble

Wibbs

stimpson wrote: »

OK, let's just say the Nissan Leaf. I read a thread on the EV forum about a new owner driving Dublin to Cavan and had to stop twice to charge. An hours journey taking 2 1/2 hours.

For short urban journeys to shops, work and school(what a huge percentage of people actually use a car for) they're great. I'd have one myself for that kinda thing, but they're still a niche device and a pain in the hole for transport beyond that niche. When they're viable for 500 mile* round trips and can be fitted to vans, busses and trucks(vans would be a biggie) without much compromise, then they'll go beyond that niche. Today? Naw.

Yet he was still saying it was so smooth and that he really didn't mind driving at 50mph. Right so.

Well that's a trend with early adopters of any new tech. They tend to be evangelical and that's fine. Though I have found among the EV evangelicals some of the most insufferable of the type. The types that are nerdy to the point of full Sheldon Cooper, working out charge cycles to the point of feverish onanism. Men(and it's usually men) who never really liked driving in the first place, add in the already atomic level pofaced piousness of the green angle and stir...

I don't believe EV's will be anywhere close to a failure. They are the future. But the early ones will be the equivalent of Amstrad computers compared to an iMac. Pioneers take the arrows, settlers take the land. EV's at the moment are still in the pioneer stage(unless as town cars).




*Yes, I said mile, not kilometre. I'm old. Feck off.

pickarooney

Lady is a tramp wrote: »

Fidget Spinners. So overrated. Bring back the good old Yoyo! Or Pogs. Pogs were great!

Literally the complete opposite of the thread subject, surely? Millions sold in a few weeks with virtually no R&D or paid marketing.

stimpson

Wibbs wrote: »

For short urban journeys to shops, work and school(what a huge percentage of people actually use a car for) they're great. I'd have one myself for that kinda thing, but they're still a niche device and a pain in the hole for transport beyond that niche. When they're viable for 500 mile* round trips and can be fitted to vans, busses and trucks(vans would be a biggie) without much compromise, then they'll go beyond that niche. Today? Naw.

Well that's a trend with early adopters of any new tech. They tend to be evangelical and that's fine. Though I have found among the EV evangelicals some of the most insufferable of the type. The types that are nerdy to the point of full Sheldon Cooper, working out charge cycles to the point of feverish onanism. Men(and it's usually men) who never really liked driving in the first place, add in the already atomic level pofaced piousness of the green angle and stir...

I don't believe EV's will be anywhere close to a failure. They are the future. But the early ones will be the equivalent of Amstrad computers compared to an iMac. Pioneers take the arrows, settlers take the land. EV's at the moment are still in the pioneer stage(unless as town cars).




*Yes, I said mile, not kilometre. I'm old. Feck off.

Yeah, I tend to agree with you. I had one for a weekend test drive and a trip to the in-laws and back was just about in range with a 2 hour charge at the far end. I decided it wasn't for me even though 90% of my journeys would be fine, but the 10% would be a pain in the tits.

The depreciation on a new one was the big killer though. When I can pick one up for 5K I will seriously consider it as a second car. I currently have a 2.0 petrol S60 taxed for 9 months of the year as the missus needs one a couple of times a month and I have the school run to do. A cheap leaf with a dodgy battery would be perfect.

valoren

Google +

Supposed to me a competitive 'social media' peer to Facebook but not.

Cervantes2

Sega Dreamcast.

Richard Hillman

The millennium clock

goose2005

Wavin plastic hurleys.

Changing Coco Pops to "Choco Krispies"

everlast75

3DO

Cervantes2

Maginot Line.:pac:

gizmo81

Dare I say the McMor?

Cantona's Collars

Dublin City transport planners. In fact most council transport planners.

"Does it function? Yep,let's change it and make it worse so".

Your Face

The_Valeyard wrote: »

?

They under the genius of Bismarck United the German states to form...... Germany.

Prussia ended in failure.
It was abolished by the Allies.
Other states that were in the German Empire still exist as states within the modern federation.

stimpson

Cervantes2 wrote: »

Sega Dreamcast.

everlast75 wrote: »

3DO

Atari Jaguar

oppenheimer1

Breo, or white Guinness.

seamus

Wibbs wrote: »

Google Glass.

To be fair to Google, they never really mass-marketed it as a permanent project. It was more of a curio to see what could be done and what kind of new tech would emerge. A big part of what they learned out of Glass was rolled into the voice control that's now being used in a big way on Android devices.

They're rumbling about a potential launch of an updated version in the next 18 months. I don't think the overall concept is a failure tbh, it just needs to find the specific niche that will turn it into something much bigger, rather than trying to convince the mass-market that people want to walk around with a smartphone over their eyes all the time.

stimpson wrote: »

I never got the hate for mini discs. Near CD quality but the convienece of a tape. In the days before recordable CDs they were fantastic. I had a compact system with MD, a head unit in the car and a portable one. And hundreds of multicoloured discs. Just because they are obsolete doesn't mean they were a failure.

I'm not sure if there was ever hate for MD as such. The availability was just lacking. They weren't easy to get, they weren't cheap, and as far as I can tell nobody ever released albums or singles on MD. Or if they did, shops never stocked albums in the MD format.
Portable CD players had their limitations, but that wasn't bad enough to make people want to pay the premium to switch to MD. Especially when most people still had walkmans that were a fraction of the price.

One of the big marketing plusses that Sony tried to push about MD was that it was like a CD, but allowed you to make your own. But then they included restrictions and copy-protection into it. This made it kind of like a CD, and kind of like a tape rather than being completely superior to both.

Once CD-Rs and audio buffering came on the scene for portable CD players (which wasn't long after MD was released), MD had nothing going for it except being smaller.

DEFTLEFTHAND

WHIP IT! wrote: »

Is this different to 'Guinness Mid Strength'? Not a Guinness drinker, but mid-strength has a kinda niche in sport clubs - as in, people can have a pint after their game of golf/tennis/five-a-side etc and still be ok to drive.... dunno if that makes it a success or not!

It was marketed towards younger drinkers and women. Drink driving wasn't a concern to most people in the early 80s, it was a national past time.

It was an utter disaster. The groups they were targeting didn't take it up and obviously the real pint of plain drinkers wouldn't touch the muck with a ten foot pole.

Gunmonkey

zerks wrote: »

Dublin City transport planners. In fact most council transport planners.

"Does it function? Yep,let's change it and make it worse so".

I think we can just lump every Dublin City planner in there: transport, construction, you name it!

"What...yis wanna build UP? But thats where de birds live!"

LithiumKid1976

E-Voting machines.
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/54m-voting-machines-scrapped-for-9-each-26870212.html

?54 million worth of tax payers money, spent on machines that couldn't be verified as being tamper proof, and couldn't provide a printout so that votes could be double checked.

then storage cost of ?140,000 per year.....

hard to top that.....

ToddyDoody

MIrosoft tablets, Nokia smartphones, windows phone - never really got going.

Harry Palmr

LithiumKid1976 wrote: »

E-Voting machines.
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/54m-voting-machines-scrapped-for-9-each-26870212.html

?54 million worth of tax payers money, spent on machines that couldn't be verified as being tamper proof, and couldn't provide a printout so that votes could be double checked.

then storage cost of ?140,000 per year.....

hard to top that.....

PPars

http://www.irishhealth.com/article.html?id=8661