BB's Random Stuff

Internet fads from way back

An article on Kuro5hin talks about some of the great Internet-related fads of the past. As the years go by, big things appear for a while, then just as most people are starting to discover them, they vanish into the backup archives, rarely being seen again.

• Flash mobs - very fast and faded quickly. By the time I got around to being curious, they had all but stopped.
• VoIP is not a fad, but a reality. It's here and a lot of people use it. I chat to dad regularly with it and it works very well. Those who say it's a dead fad obviously never actually needed it or experienced it. But plenty still do, and it's growing.
• Thin clients are a niche market, but still have great promise for specialised applications where a complete PC is not required. They arent too popular today, but still have a lot of promise.
• Digital Personae - yes very cheezy and annoying. I avoided those, opting instead for email.
• WAP is very difficult to use, definitely not the thing that it was made out to be, especially with the introduction of 3G phones. But it did make for a bridging technology.
• Digital acronyms, achieving nothing except fill space in otherwise empty presentations.
• Online shopping is there, and still a major revenue generator. But everyday household shopping is the last thing anyone wants to buy online. It just takes too long to get your stuff.
• Aaah...I remember when the boss at Zip first downloaded Pointcast, and all the hype surrounding it. But I never really saw the point.

And of course, who can forget the disastrous web site cliches people have come up with?