Who can forget New Coke? But who really wants to remember the taste?
One touring exhibit, turned museum, takes visitors on a walk down memory lane, not for those huge successes like iPod, but rather, the huge failures companies have launched. Anyone remember the Apple Newton? And no one is walking around wearing the Google Glass, are they?
It’s called, appropriately enough, The Museum of Failure, and it spotlights all those products that were introduced, some to great fanfare, others more quietly, that just didn’t make it in the marketplace.
The Museum of Failure opened last year as "a traveling pop-culture show," the LA Times reported. It is opening as a permanent museum in Hollywood this week, Fortune reported.
There is also a museum opened by its founder, Dr. Samuel West, in his native country of Sweden.
West is a psychologist and innovation researcher, according to Fortune.
When West opened the original incarnation in Sweden, it had about 17,000 visitors in three months. He didn’t expect that it would be a hit.
“It’s hilarious to think of the Museum of Failure as a success.” West told the LA Times. “I didn’t expect it. I was, and still am, shocked that I’m opening my little museum in Los Angeles. It’s surreal. It’s a nerdy exhibit -- a collection of innovation failures -- and I’m still getting used to he fact that people are interested in it.”
So what treasures of failure does the museum hold?
You've got a lasagna, made by toothpaste company Colgate.
Entertainment gadgets that missed the mark like Betamax, the Power Glove, ET Atari Game and unfortunately Blockbuster.
There are car failures:
And food fails:
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