Gadgetory

some of our most beloved technology has endured the test of time the laptop computer has been around for 33 years the cellphone has been around for 30 years email 20 years but other tech trends come and go faster than you can save parachute pants this year especially we're looking at a long list of overhyped fads that may fall flat smartwatches Google glass bitcoins robin thicke so to keep things in perspective today I'm counting down my list of the top 5 tech fads of the past 15 years starting off at number 5 QR codes I feel like this was the year that everyone finally came to their senses and stopped putting these on things we'll still have to explain the past 5 years to our children and why we felt compelled to put QR codes on everything from billboards to breakfast cereal I'll admit that it was kind of cute at first a secret code that only nerds with smartphones could unlock maybe it would take you to a movie trailer or a discount on your coffee but more often than not it just was a way to get you from one add to another eventually people stopped taking the bait and advertisers moved on to spamming you directly on Facebook I'm number 4 netbooks who needs laptops when a crushingly small underpowered netbook can take you to the same web for just three hundred dollars that logic helped to sell a lot of Belle minis and a soos a pcs the netbook trend was a wake-up call to manufacturers signaling the decline of the traditional laptop people wanted something different they wanted something simple and something much less expensive and then they got that in 2010 when Apple unveiled the iPad the netbook was a nice placeholder but when the tablet market took off it killed the netbook and really put the squeeze on laptops coming in at number three second life at a time that was post myspace but not yet consumed by Facebook and Twitter the cool people were all running their avatars around Second Life and getting molested by the virtual equivalent of a Burning Man peyote vision not to be left out big brands like Dell Reebok an American Apparel were all setting up virtual stores staffed by virtual employees and real Economist's to wonder what it all meant the GDP of Second Life was larger than most small nations but then like a cat to a laser pen we all found other ways to distract ourselves online right now there's a mohawk stripper with a skunk tail dancing for no one in an abandoned steampunk strip club where's her economic recovery or his I don't know it's hard to tell back to reality for our number two tech fad that was more hype than substance the 3d TV well really 3d in general if you think about it after avatar became the first movie to gross over two billion dollars we tried to put 3d in everything 3d tablets 3d phones 3d laptops the Nintendo 3ds but it was TVs that really held tight to that 3d fad after all of 3d was going to be the future for Hollywood that everyone would need a way to watch that content at home too right well it turns out that the 3d fad was like reheated hype stuffed into new hype it was like a turducken of BS slide from James Cameron no one really wanted to make 3d movies audiences didn't really want to pay more to see 3d movies and they certainly didn't want to buy a whole new TV just to get migraines at home now to be fair most new TVs come with 3d compatibility but that's not what sells the TV if you could save a hundred bucks by not having 3d you'd probably not hesitate to dump it all right and now for the number one tech fad that choked on its own hype a groceries yes I'm reaching all the way back to the Webvan days for this one in the late 90s at the height of the dot-com boom seemed that the internet was going to overturn every traditional brick-and-mortar business and none seemed more ripe for disruption than the local grocery store web van and others secured millions of dollars to quickly establish themselves as key players they built warehouses bought fleets of delivery trucks and hired thousands of workers bracing themselves for the insane demand of a public unshackled from having to waste their time pushing wobbly wheeled carts around big-box grocery stores and then nothing not so much turns out that old habits die hard putting aside the insane cost of all the infrastructure involved people just didn't really want to shop for groceries online what they want is for the groceries to magically appear in their kitchen so until the Star Trek food replicator becomes a reality the supermarket is going to be just fine so there you have it five of the biggest lamest fads in recent tech history though I'm starting to think we'll have a few more to add to the list before the years through more top 5 videos head over to top-5 dot cnn.com where you can leave me a comment with your own failed tech fad nominations until then i'm donald bell thanks for watching