Why have these things never caught on?

Sometimes someone creates something, a service, or a piece of hardware, that is just completley revolutionary, and completley brilliant, but for some reason it does not catch on. Maybe it’s because that the technology is so brilliant, people don’t want to take it up, they like to slip into the old ways once again, rather than take up the perfectly brilliant technology.

There’s a few things I can think of. In fact there’s a few things I’ve found out recently, owing largley to unemployment. Yes indeed I was chucked at one of the worst times in the last 30 years. Still, I have managed to discover certain things that have impressed me, that force me to beg the question, why did these things not catch on?

Let’s cut to it shall we?

Internet Radio

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been…indulging, shall we say in what my iTunes has to offer under the “radio” tab, and I’ve found some fantastic music, live streaming & even some you can join in with.  In fact I’ve been so impressed with it, that I’ve hardly bothered listening to normal radio while I’m at home. I’ve found myself tuning into clanbase, or even some of the millions of other services out there, but I can’t seem to find out why this hasn’t taken off.

True there are, devices that are out there, that allow you to hook up your home amplifier to an internet radio system, which, frankly is incredibly complicated, and based on the reviews I have seen, even the tech savvy can’t seem to set these things up properly, or have so much difficulty that it isn’t worth it. Perhaps that’s why it hasnt really taken off. But then the way thing’s are these days, it’s completley possible for someone to create the system, that would make it completley seamless. But no-one has taken interest, certainly at least not in the UK.

Let’s move onto the next one.

Getting your news online

Let’s not be too quick to judge this one. Google, and many other sources are hailing the death of the newspaper, but let’s not also forget that in Britain especially, the newspaper is still a very common sight. The Metro which is given out freely on public transport, and in the street, but also the major tabloids like the Sun, The Mirror, The Telegraph. All are simply the single source of information for 90% of the people.

Yet we have the wonders of the internet at our hands, in our fingertips. We have the BBC news site, Live online stock reporting, incredible advances that allow us to see the news in video, in high def. We can get our daily dose through RSS feeds, compiled neatly into one application. I know because I do. I get my daily dose of news through services like Newsgator. I read my horoscopes, watch the latest news, all on my phone or on my PC. I simply have no need to watch the news on television anymore, because it’s just so out of date. If you want an example, take a look at the recent “state of emergeny” that was issues in Pattayah in Thailand. BBC reported it as Thailand having a state of emergency (rather than Pattayah) almost 6 hours after it had been issued. Worse only a few hours later, the state of emergency was lifted. At this moment in time the BBC have not reported that.

These are just two of the many things that I can think of to go in this list. But isn’t it a shame? Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. But, still, it does make me wonder. Just what else is lurking out there, that I should know about.