The technology world is always full of surprises. While some small ideas and decisions turn into big business. There is a thin line which separates what becomes revolutionary and what immediately turns into obituary. With so many things happening around us, every day we often miss out on some of the hits and misses in this crazy world of gadgets and gizmos. Here in this article, we take a look at the five biggest flops for the year 2012 that promised a lot, but fizzled out in the end.

1. Facebook IPO Fails To Receive ‘Likes’

Facebook IPO was surely one of the most hyped events in the year. It was expected to break all record on the NASDAQ. Some even foresaw it to be a trillion dollar company in no time. A company which had earned $3.7 billion last years was valued at a whopping $104 billion. Silicon Valley was a buzz with the ‘biggest deal’ ever talk and the media went berserk with the IPO. A perfect recipe for disaster had been written and for the stock which was valued at $38. In less than a month’s time, the stocks fell to $26 leaving the investors poorer by almost 30%. Some investors even sued Facebook calling it an IPO scam as the stocks were immensely over-priced. One thing is for sure Mark Zuckerberg’s new move didn’t receive the ‘Like’.

2. Not Many Likes for This, Yahoo! Fires CEO

 

Don’t lie in your resume is what most sane people would suggest you. One can tweak a few things here and there, but that can not be possible, when you are a certain Scott Thompson the CEO of Yahoo! Scott who took over the top post in the Internet giant in January this year was fired from his job for embellishing his resume. He had claimed that he had a bachelor’s degree in accounts and computers from Stonehill College. The fact is that the college did not offer such a course, and when Scott was a student there, he had a degree only in accounting. As soon as this news came out, he was offered the pink slip. He is the sixth person to vacate the post in the last five years which reflects upon the company’s present fortunes.

3. SOPA: The Pirated Move to Kill Piracy

Most of us see the Internet as a medium to share and spread knowledge. However, the U.S. House of Representatives saw it in a different manner. In a bid to curb piracy or rather hijack it, they brought in the controversial bill for Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). If passed, it would have allowed the governments to block ISPs or entire Internet domains which were accused of infringing on copyrighted content. The tech community launched a campaign against it with websites like Wikipedia and Reddit even blacking out their services for a day as a sign of protest. Internet giants like Google also lend their support in what was seen as an Internet killer. In the end, House Judiciary Committee postponed consideration of the bill and tabled it indefinitely.

4. Google Wallet (Don’t Lose Your Hard Earned Money)

Not everything that Google touches turns into gold. NFT (Near Field Technology) was considered to be the next big thing from the search engine giant and would take the world into a cashless phase. But consumers have given thumbs down to NFT because of its vulnerable nature. Google wallet came out with a great security flaw, as it allowed anyone holding an already-rooted smartphone running Google Wallet to access the Google Wallet PIN. This allows anyone to make purchases using the credit card tied to the NFC chip. Real wallets are still on as Google tries to fix the security issues which could restrict some of the biggest advantages of this technology.

5. Mac Succumbs To Trojan Flashback

One of the biggest myths of the technology world that Mac computers are impervious to virus attacks has been busted. A Trojan named Flashback affected over 600,000 Mac Books. Flashback arrived masked as an Adobe Flash update and is still affecting close to 140,000 computers running on the worlds ‘impenetrable’ operating system. The malware exploits a Java vulnerability and is being touted as the single biggest threat that Mac has ever faced. There was also wide spread criticism of Apple as it was slow in releasing Java updates and the removal tools. They perhaps never expected such a thing to happen to their ‘sacred operating system’ as viruses were thought to be a ‘Windows only’. No wonder the entire team at Microsoft had a simile on their face when this news broke out.

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