Slashdot Mirror
Museum of Failure Opens In Sweden (failuremag.com)
Slashdot reader swellconvivialguy writes: A new museum in Helsingborg displays more than 70 failed products and objects, including the Apple Newton, Google Glass, Sony Betamax, Harley-Davidson perfume, and the Donald Trump board game. According to curator Samuel West, "none of the companies that I contacted wanted to cooperate. I approached quite a few innovation directors and asked them for examples of failure that they've learned from. I thought it would be easy to get them to collaborate but none of them -- zero -- choose to cooperate."
The curator urges people to accept failure -- "as an essential aspect of progress and innovation."
The curator urges people to accept failure -- "as an essential aspect of progress and innovation."
Betamax recorders were in production for almost 40 years, the tapes were produced for 50 years. That's a high level of longevity for any digital format. Production of the units survived right into the DVD era, and it's probably DVDs which killed it in the end, not VHS. VHS had 40 years to kill it, and failed.
Additionally, Betcam is still in production as is HDCAM, they have two form factors, one of which is the same as Betamax, if you watch any anime, they are still almost all mastered on HDCAM, i.e. high-definition version of Betamax tapes.
It's only a very limited viewpoint that considers Betamax a flop / failed product. If we're going that far we should consider Apple Macs a failure because Windows is industry-standard.