So for me, right now, it is a flop. I won’t speak for everyone though. How many French people do you know that have an iPhone vs. perhaps an iTouch?

Also, since iPhone/iTouch is a video-playing device, I wonder what effect a lacking European video-store has had on sales here.

1) Nobody agrees on whether the iPhone is a top or a flop – maybe we’ll need to wait a bit before knowing the answer;

2) Nobody seems to like the Zune apart from Jeremy (yet it did sell well indeed)

3) RoR was clearly overhyped

4) Surfaces might be the next big thing for 2008

5) More flops: Palm Foleo, Second Life, Vista (arguably), HD-DVD, Joost

6) More tops: Twitter, Blu-Ray, Leopard, Flixter

I believed (not knowing very much on the subject obviously) that there was some kind of strong script/language dichotomy. In my non-specialist mind, scripting languages usually run over specific applications and are somehow easier to develop at the expense of functionality.

Anyways, this is not a big issue I guess.

I wouldn’t say Java was a success (compared to what it was hyped as), but it succeeded C as the enterprise programming language. My guess is that thanks to SOA and stuff like it there won’t be another “the one” enterprise language in the future.

The problem that might never be solved is that how to run Rails on a shared host (f.e. http://blog.dreamhost.com/2008/01/07/how-ruby-on-rails-could-be-much-better/ ) and Ruby support in general is rare. Pretty much all (shared or not) webhosts support PHP, Perl and some Python.

Cecil, yes, maybe we’ll see more Rails in 2008, but as for 2007, I consider it was a flop.

Surface got more attention in my opinion than Zune. And while Zune is just another gadget, Surface is a real breakthrough innovation.

I definitely agree for the Google Pack and Second Life. But in the latter case, maybe the technology is just too immature while the concept could prove somehow valuable. History will tell us.

So, some more tops/flops:

Top: the hybrid car & Toyota

Flops: Palm products

Flop: HD-DVD lost out to Blue-ray

Top: NYTimes conversion to new media

Flop: independent blogging

Top: vlogging

Flop: Google pack

Flop: Spore (game)

Top: Gaming industry in general

Top: online advertising

Top: robots

Flop: second life

Ok, brainfreeze.

Regarding scripting languages, they have always been there, right ? But Python, TCL/Tk, and others (Mac users: remember AppleScript ?) are just scripting languages, ie for me they serve very particular purposes only, don’t you agree ?

Java appeared in 1996 and was mainstream in 2000/01. I wouldn’t say it took time.

However, I could witness during the last couple of years a wish to move away from Java Enterprise Platform (extremely complicated) towards such framework as RoR.

Beyond Ruby, all scripting languages are now seen as a threat for Java Dominance on the enterprise market. Sun answer to that was in Java 6 to include a JSR to support scripting languages.

Besides, the Java implementation of Ruby (JRuby) written by 2 pure geeks (including Ola Bini) on their spare time have been bought by Sun, presumably for later inclusion in the JVM, as the new Sun Java Strategy is slowly moving from “Write Once run Everywhere” to “One JVM, many languages”.

I also disagree with what has been said about RoR. Many web 2.0 success stories are built on RoR (37 Signals, Twitter, Slideshare …). A lot has been learnt regarding how to deploy and scale RoR solutions.

So watch for RoR in 2008, especially now that RoR 2.0 has just been released.

(19 comments, you’re on a roll.)

Is this a success ? It depends on the initials expectations, back in 1995, but at that time I was barely discovering computers.

In any case, this is the first I’ve heard of RoR flopping. Even Amazon’s using it for chris’s sake: link .

Yet in the development world, it seems that some very promising technologies may wait years and years before they finally succeed (eg: Java).

Am I wrong ?

ps : my own list is pretty short :

flop = Windows Vista. 2007 was supposed to be the year of massive roll-out for the new MS OS.

top = iPhone. For it has changed the way we deal with mobile communications at large.

To be more explicit, I believe that the success of Twitter and Jaiku relies in their user base involvement. If you fail to maintain that at a high level, users might just drop these systems. You’ve got to provide incentives (other than just “being fashionabe”) to keep people spending their much-wanted time on such services.

Strange Twitter does not appear here.

Agree with Marc for the Wii and iPhone impact on 2007 (eventhough Wii was out in 2006). These really changed the way we interact with electronic communication and entertainment and as such, they did changed our lives.

Seriously speaking, from an old-timer perspective (FYI, I’ve just celebrated my 25th year in business today – I assume most of you guys are even younger than that, sniff ), the Wii and the iPhone are true paradigm-shifting / breakthrough products : for the first time ever, everybody can touch and feel high-tech. Just those two examples : scrolling photos on a screen with your fingertip was pure Sci-Fi 25 years ago, as was playing tennis holding a remote control like a raquette. For you Youngsters, this is *just* normal. For most of the people out there, this is Sci-Fi made real. Which is not the Zune, nor Facebook, by the way

The Zune #4 in the Top-list ? Come on Man, stop that Reality Distorsion Field engine of yours !

Safari for Windows was nested with bugs indeed but it was heavily downloaded.

The iPhone…well, maybe it is too early to draw a conclusion, but in terms of buzz-making, it seems a tremendous success. An analyst estimated that the sole Keynote presentation on last January was worth a $500 mln ad campaign.

Firefox…I don’t really know, i have got mixed feelings. It is not a very stable nor innovative version, but plugins sometimes compensate for that and it grabbed a really significant market share against IE, and made Microsoft get back to the job and release a newer version.

The TV app: you mean Joost ? I definitely agree.

Google Video is useless, agreed, but then it became useless after the YouTube acquisition.

Leopard a top…granted, it did very well in terms of sales, but technically speaking Apple just f… up quite a number of things, as explained by Paul Thurrott or John Siracusa in their consistent reviews (www.winsupersite.com and http://www.arstechnica.com respectively).

Thanks for your thoughts…

The OLPC is way up there as a flop, as is the Playstation 3, though I have faith for 2008 for the latter.

The iPhone, while revolutionary, disappointed with its mobile carrier-associations. I wish a phone-maker (e.g. Nokia) looked beyond the traditional carrier-lock-in and did something with other communication-technologies. And I have a feeling (of hope) that something in that regard will happen in 2008.

The iTouch, I think, is a great success however. And it will be great as soon as applications are installable on it.

DRM was maybe a flop, but rather I would place “no-DRM” as a top.

As far as I know, Safari on Windows was a flop. IE7, though it was released in 2006, I think, was a top.

Firefox 2 was a flop (again, not sure if that was released in 2007, though sentiments definitely sunk that year).

Adobe AIR was a top, Silverlight is, so far, a flop. 2008 could be interesting for SL though.

Google Video service was a flop, as was the TV-app (the name escapes me) by the makers of Skype.

Skype was a flop… for eBay… not for users.

Tumblr was a top. Jaiku is, in my book, a flop.

Leopard was a top, Vista was a flop (again so far, MSFT has deep pockets, but I think Vista is the next-gen Win ME).

TechMeme was a top, Technorati a flop.

HDTV, and particular HD-media, was, so far, a flop. But it’s early days yet.

Blockbuster was a flop, Flixter a top.

That’s all I can think of for now.