7. Qwikster… Er, Netflix
What was Netflix smoking when it tried to spin off its DVD business with the name Qwikster? We see a lot of dumb product names around here, but Qwikster definitely takes the cake this year.
It was terribly timed, too. Netflix had just separated its streaming and DVD pricing plans, raising rates for customers who had both, which drove a million customers away. The Qwikster saga added insult to injury.
In addition to costing more, Netflix was going to force users to go to two separate websites, one for Netflix streaming and one for Qwikster DVDs. The fiasco reached a fever pitch when the Internet’s attention turned to Jason Castillo, young owner of the @Qwikster Twitter account, who had a pot-smoking Elmo as his avatar. Hilarity ensued.
It only took a month for Netflix to reverse its decision. Despite the regrettable Qwikster incident, we think Netflix got a bad rap this year. Were those price increases really so bad, considering how much it costs to, say, go to a movie? Regardless, the Qwikster incident was not what Netflix needed, so it’s a good thing that’s over with.
6. Google Axes [insert favorite service]
In an effort to slim down and “ship the Plus part” of its services, Google shut down a swath of products this year, leaving some users in the lurch. Google’s a busy place these days, and it has to prioritize, but its strategy of “letting a thousand flowers bloom” means that not everything can make it into “a nice bouquet.”
Those are quotes from Sergey Brin, by the way. Google has built thousands of cool things over the year, letting users play with them for free. Some people built lasting workflows upon them that are broken now. Google’s house-cleaning this year left Web denizens with a clear message: Don’t trust free services.
Google dumped Android App Inventor, a do-it-yourself programming tool that was beloved by computer science educators. It axed Buzz, an ill-fated social network, and Labs, its arsenal of neat, usable experiments on top of Google’s existing products. It turned off Code Search, which was an asset to developers. It killed off Timeline search, which allowed interesting date range filtering of Google search results. In the last round, it shut down Wave, Knol, Friend Connect and more.
These services didn’t have lots of users, but they had some, and those people are out of luck. Fortunately, several of these, such as App Inventor and Code Search, were open-sourced and rescued by other institutions.
5. Google Redesigns [insert other favorite service]
Axing little-used services was one thing, but Google gave some of its major services makeovers this year, and they were the cause of much consternation. The most infamous change was the Google Reader overhaul. In an effort to unify the product line under the Google+ banner, Google ended up eliminating social features that were beloved by Reader users.
Google also brought the same kind of design to Gmail. It was good looking, which was new for Google products, but it took some unfortunate hits in usability, such as replacing text buttons with inscrutable icons.
Google is redesigning things around Plus so often, it’s hard to get used to the way anything works. After rolling out a ubiquitous black nav bar across all Google services just this summer, it completely changed the nav bar again in November. And the Plussification of Google services is only accelerating, so get used to not being used to it.
Next page: The 4 Most Epic Tech Fails of 2011
Article source: RRW http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/readwriteweb/~3/f4L9f_ajJf8/7_epic_tech_fails_of_2011.php