#3 Segway

Year it was supposed to blow: 2001

Segway seems to be a product right out of science fiction or inspiration from animated children movies. It is a two wheeled, battery powered gizmo, self balanced, so you can just ride it even if you don’t know how to ride a bicycle. Invented by Dean Kamen, the technology was supposed to revolutionize the way people walked, the way the cities were planned. But the fantasy ends here, many countries put restriction in the places the Segways shouldn’t be used. People just liked to walk then ride on a Segway, so now it’s mostly used by the mall cops.

#2 LaserDisc

Year it was supposed to blow: 1978–1999

It is the first optical disk storage system, marketed by MCA Disco Vision in North America in 1978. Though it offered better audio and video quality, it did not kick a revolution. The format remained obscure in Europe and Australia, enjoyed fair popularity in South East Asian countries, like Malaysia, Singapore, and China during 1990s.

Without it, DVD or Blu-ray would have been in obscurity. The let-down reasons behind Laser Disc failure would be—high price tag, lack of titles and prone to scratches. Also, while playing, it required each side of the disk to be flipped over at particular intervals, and there was no guarantee that the format is compatible with the player.

#1 Video Social Networks

Year it was supposed to blow: 2009

Chatroulette is the first video social network started by Andrey Ternovsky that crashed before it can take off.  Other entrepreneur like Parker and Sean Fanning came up to pull Ternovsky’s invention from hallows. They launched Airtime, a service to share posts and videos in real time. It did not gather the social buzz yet.