(no subject)

[gwynhefar]

Hey, I thought I'd throw this out to the collective wisdom of my LJ friends. Can anyone think of specific examples of promising internet services or technologies that never quite caught on, and also examples of the same which were initially unpopular or not well-regarded, but then became surprise successes?

Comments

Re: A Case for Gopher Space

[tewok.livejournal.com]

Yup, I was thinking of just this myself. As I recall, gopher came along maybe two years before the web started hitting the net. Not getting the popularity with the average person, but getting to be known by the average then-current network user. gopher was definitely useful, but it was quickly supplanted by the web.

I remember when people mocked Twitter and laughed at the people who used it. Then came Facebook -- which is sorta Twitter with extra goop -- and everyone fell in lurve.

Earlier today, I remembered in the early days of the web I was talking to a cow-orker about product documentation. I laughed at the thought that it'd be provided over the net without any docs accompanying the product. That was a case of me missing the boat, rather than the world missing it.

Re: distributed document delivery system

[tewok.livejournal.com]

No value judgments from me as to comparing gopher and www. I didn't use gopher enough -- and never set up a gopher hole -- to intelligently compare them. When I first used it, I thought it was really useful. Sorry if I gave the wrong impression.

(Ah, Modern English. Haven't heard them in a while.)

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

Well, Google Wave is brilliant, but doesn't seem to be surviving.

Mobile access was "next year, for sure" for about six years, but has only taken off in the last year, with iPhones, ipads, and similar devices - I'm writing this comment on an iPhone.

The EVE Online game was a slow starter, but may now be the strongest part of the Icelandic economy.

[6-bleen-7.livejournal.com]

I was going to mention Google Wave, as well. It sounded pretty cool, but I didn't really see a need for it. I heard it's going to expire soon.