There are few areas of modern life as rife with hype, hoopla and hazy prognosticating as the Internet. Before the Web era, the Holy Grail was the "paperless office," but since the mid-1990s it's been all about how the Internet will revolutionize, well, everything. Total interconnectivity was to be the Road to Utopia, and all manner of centralizing forces were unleashed to corral all of the people who were rapidly decentralizing and creating small, niche communities. Not everything worked out quite as intended.
It wasn't just "new" things that were hyped so heatedly, but "improved" ones, too - the better browser, the bigger auction site, the move to mobile - but it didn't seem that the old rules of planning, research and development were in place. Ideas seemed to go straight from the drawing board into cyberspace. Fortunately, for the most part, global "netizens" didn't waste any time, either, in rendering a verdict on a growing batch of losers. Five are especially instructive.
1. Just how many calendars does one person need?
Real Simple Syndication, RSS, had a pretty rapid growth and has become a browser staple. So some enterprising folks figured (apparently without doing any market research or due diligence) that RSSCalendar was a sure thing, letting people share their Outlook calendars with others. The catch? Calendars are built into Windows and Mac OS X, and a great Google calendar is available, too. By the summer of 2007 the company had auctioned itself off on eBay. RSS was not a huge hit to begin with, being used by about 1 out of 15 people, so the idea of a spin-off was little weird.
2. First things first
The trend toward "hyperlocal" content was perhaps best typified by MyKinda, an Eastern European-oriented blog network that started operating in September 2008. The site figured it would carry country-specific news, business, culture, tech, lifestyle and entertainment, in regional languages with some English thrown in. It drew fewer visitors and advertisers than writers (that's hyperbole, but not far off) and MyKinda closed its virtual doors in February 2008. Good niche content is costly, and it you don't already have enough visitors to draw advertisers, you're doomed.
3. Craigslist is king
The trend toward friendly, community sites like Craigslist hasn't completely died out, but it