- 7 months ago
Remember when these companies were household names? Join us as we look back at corporate giants from the 2000s that have since vanished from the business landscape! From tech innovators to entertainment pioneers, these companies once dominated their industries before falling victim to changing markets, poor management, or simply being outpaced by competitors.
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00:00But these texts are sent via data, so behind the network's back.
00:06Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for companies that rose to relevance in the 2000s
00:11but have since disappeared, gone defunct, or were absorbed into larger corporations.
00:15Friendster started in 2003 in San Francisco.
00:20Number 10. Juiced.
00:21Before YouTube took over the world, there was Juiced.
00:24And it basically gives me internet television for free.
00:27Created by the minds behind Skype and Kazaa, Juiced was a peer-to-peer online video platform
00:32that aimed to revolutionize home entertainment by streaming shows and movies online.
00:36The best part? You get to be your own programming executive.
00:39Picking and choosing what shows you want to watch, when you want to watch them, in your own custom channel.
00:44Masquerading under the codename The Venice Project, Juiced was finally launched in 2007 amid huge media buzz.
00:51Unfortunately, Juiced couldn't sustain the hype that followed its launch.
00:54Unable to scale quickly enough and plagued by licensing issues, a clunky interface and slow buffering,
01:00Juiced lost its users.
01:01Competing platforms like Hulu and YouTube were the nail in the coffin.
01:04By 2012, Juiced was dead in the water.
01:06And let's face it, this is a whole lot more interesting than watching skateboarding dogs.
01:11Number 9. Avatar Reality.
01:13Final Fantasy met Tetris when industry veterans Kazuyuki Hashimoto and Hank Rogers
01:18joined forces to found Avatar Reality in 2006.
01:21They were poised to create a next-gen multiplayer virtual world platform called Blue Mars.
01:25What the experience does is the people come up to the machine and they interact with virtual people.
01:32And sometimes the people get the avatars to do things, and sometimes the avatars get the people to do things.
01:38Aiming to bring together individuals from around the world,
01:40the Hawaii-based startup was hailed as the future of social interactions.
01:44But limited press coverage and poor marketing meant users had no idea of Blue Mars' existence.
01:48Has it been a little slow? Some people said there hasn't been as much traffic.
01:53Yeah, Tuesday, Wednesday is kind of slow.
01:55Server costs, technical limitations, and a severe lack of user adoption did not help.
01:59The platform's ambition was too big for its infrastructure,
02:02and both Blue Mars and Avatar Reality faded into the digital ether.
02:06So eventually, what we can do is, you can get in front of this machine,
02:11and we capture your emotion, and then somewhere in the world,
02:15there'll be an avatar that has your movements.
02:19And so, we will learn from you, learn from your moves, and you can contribute to the world.
02:24Number 8. We Sabe.
02:26Before digital services became mainstream, managing personal finances was not an enjoyable experience.
02:32I'm Gabriel with We Sabe, and We Sabe is the perfect blend of community and personal finance.
02:38When We Sabe came around in 2005 as everyone's go-to budgeting app,
02:42it seemed to spell inevitable success.
02:44We Sabe aimed to help users manage their finances with bank integrations, budgeting tools, and community tips.
02:50So this is an example of where you can actually pick and choose the things that you want to show on your homepage.
02:56It was the precursor to what is now a standard feature in the financial landscape.
03:00But customer delivery and experience are equally important to service.
03:04We Sabe lacked this.
03:05Its complex user interface, unfinished data acquisition system, and delayed data syncing
03:10made it untenable as a budgeting tool.
03:13Despite early traction, We Sabe fell behind its immediate competitor, Mint,
03:17which offered users a sleeker experience and efficient automation before closing down in 2010.
03:22So if you'd like to hear more about it, come by the table. Thanks a lot.
03:25Number 7. Bebo.
03:26A social media darling of the early 2000s, Bebo operated from 2005 until its downfall in 2013.
03:32Welcome to the office.
03:34Popular in the UK and Ireland, Bebo advocated for its users to blog early, blog often.
03:40As a social networking website, Bebo surpassed the MySpace juggernaut, becoming a central hangout for teens.
03:45Our aim was to try and have the self-expression of MySpace and the utility and product quality of Facebook.
03:50In 2008, at its peak, AOL acquired Bebo for $850 million.
03:55However, the emergence of new competitor platforms led to Bebo's downward spiral.
03:59By 2010, the platform's poor integration and Facebook's dominance led AOL to sell off Bebo for a fraction of its buying cost.
04:06Do you feel like you've got your baby back?
04:08I do in some respects. I actually didn't miss it when we first sold it, and I'm much happier getting it back than I realized I would be.
04:15Attempted relaunches were unsuccessful, and Bebo was basically gone by 2013.
04:20Beloved for its quirky charm, Bebo couldn't keep up with the times and eventually went extinct.
04:24Obviously, we can't run a business forever as a charity, because it's not a charity.
04:29So it does have to eventually make a profit, but our aim is to build something that people love.
04:33And if we can succeed in that, we know we'll have a successful business.
04:36Number 6, THQ.
04:38When it came to video games in the early 2000s, THQ was the big dog.
04:41Wage war in all new backstage areas, perform vicious double team moves, and show no mercy in the high-flying ladder match.
04:46Founded in April 1990, Toy Headquarters initially focused on toys before expanding into the video game industry.
04:53By the 2000s, THQ was consistently hitting its strides, making multiple acquisitions in the industry,
04:58and delivering hits like Darksiders and Saints Row.
05:01That's the great thing about this city.
05:05It's there for the taking.
05:07In 2008, the global financial crisis severely impacted the video game industry.
05:11In its aftermath, a combination of changing market dynamics and poor investments
05:15led to THQ's shares plummeting in the stock market.
05:18Keep your head on a swivel, because danger can come from anywhere.
05:21The company declared bankruptcy in 2012.
05:23Its assets were sold off.
05:25The THQ name was eventually revived under THQ Nordic.
05:28But the original company that helped shape mid-2000s gaming was long gone.
05:32Number 5, Friendster.
05:33The long-forgotten ancestor of Facebook and MySpace,
05:36Friendster went live in March 2003 and was one of the first social networking and online dating platforms.
05:41Friendster is an online community where members get to socialize via exchanging messages, testimonials, and pictures.
05:48Users could create profiles, share their photos, and build a network of, well, friends.
05:52Friendster was most popular in Southeast Asia, and at its peak, it had over 100 million users.
05:57Man, I love Friendster.
05:59But good things always come to an end.
06:00As Friendster continued to scale up to meet customer demands, it faced many issues.
06:05Slow servers as well as poor management and user experience contributed to Friendster's decline.
06:10After a failed pivot into social gaming, Friendster shut down as a social network site in 2011.
06:15A pioneer for the social networking landscape, Friendster's time came too soon.
06:19Let's tip our virtual hats to Friendster, a pioneer that dared to dream of a world connected by cliques and friendships.
06:27Number 4, Compaq.
06:28Compaq produced some of the very first IBM PC-compatible computers and became the largest supplier of PC systems in the 90s.
06:35With CD-ROM Intel Pentium processor with MMX technology and excellent sound,
06:40You'd think Compaq would be thriving today.
06:48However, in the digital age, the company's nowhere to be found.
06:51The economic expansion of the 1990s prompted Compaq to acquire major equipment manufacturers for billions of dollars.
06:57There's nothing like the new Compaq Creative Learning Series.
07:00Home computers that can help kids do better in school, so they'll do better in life.
07:04This backfired as cultural differences between companies led to inefficiencies and complexities.
07:08By the early 2000s, cost-cutting and internal conflicts weakened the brand.
07:13In 2002, Compaq was acquired by HP.
07:16Its name lingered for a few years on budget laptops, but the brand's presence gradually vanished.
07:21A titan was reduced to a footnote in the tech industry.
07:28Number 3, LimeWire.
07:30Long before Spotify made its roost, LimeWire was the go-to for music lovers who wanted to download their favorite songs, often illegally.
07:37To find your music, you're going to want to type in what song you want.
07:42A familiar name in the bootleg CD era, LimeWire was a peer-to-peer file-sharing software that exploded in popularity during the 2000s.
07:49Music, movies, software, you name it, LimeWire had it.
07:52The dubious nature of transactions on LimeWire made it infamous for viruses and lawsuits.
07:56In 2006, major record labels sued LimeWire for over a billion dollars.
08:01At one point, LimeWire was installed on over one-third of all computers worldwide, fueling a global frenzy.
08:07In 2010, a U.S. federal court ruled that LimeWire had committed copyright infringement and enforced its shutdown.
08:13A software that brought joy and trouble for its users, LimeWire defined a generation of digital music consumption.
08:19Officials from LimeWire said in a statement, quote,
08:21While this is not our ideal path, we hope to work with the music industry in moving forward.
08:26We look forward to embracing necessary changes and collaborating with the entire music industry in the future.
08:31Number 2, Blockbuster Online.
08:33When mail-based DVD rental services like Netflix entered the market, old-timer Blockbuster launched a bid for its own DVD by mail service in 2004.
08:41Blockbuster Online. Choose your movies online, receive and return them by mail.
08:44Dubbed Blockbuster Online, the service mirrored Netflix's subscription model and even allowed in-store exchanges.
08:50Amid the rapidly changing landscape of digital entertainment, it felt like Blockbuster had finally cracked the code to immortality.
08:56Plan start, it is $9.99.
08:59Still, success is built on consistency.
09:01Blockbuster was lackluster in this area.
09:03Slow innovation, poor leadership, and Netflix's rapid pivot to streaming led to Blockbuster's demise.
09:09In 2010, the company filed for bankruptcy.
09:11The company would struggle on for a little longer but was essentially finished.
09:15Blockbuster's decline to Netflix was all the more ironic, as it had the opportunity to purchase the once-fledgling company.
09:21Sign up today at Blockbuster.com and start getting movies delivered to your door.
09:25Plus, free movies at your Blockbuster store.
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09:421. BlackBerry
09:45Once the go-to smartphone for executives and politicians alike, BlackBerry was a signature of its own.
09:51For much of the mid-to-late 2000s, Research in Motion's BlackBerry was the most popular smartphone brand in the U.S., and it wasn't close.
09:58Offering two-way communication as opposed to the now-ancient one-way commercial pagers, it also removed user reliance on a personal computer for communication.
10:061. BlackBerry was dubbed Crackberry due to its addictive nature.
10:102. Upon becoming president, Barack Obama fought to keep his device.
10:13But I'm still clinging to my BlackBerry. They're going to pry it out of my hands.
10:172. The humble BlackBerry was everywhere.
10:18The iPhone's arrival in 2007 marked a new era of touchscreen devices and app ecosystems.
10:243. BlackBerry failed to adapt. By 2016, its market share had collapsed.
10:28I think we saw as we were getting closer to our BlackBerry 10 launch and seeing the headway that Apple and Android were making in this space.
10:39So I would say around that time frame is when I think the company realized that, yeah, we would need to make some significant changes.
10:46Today, BlackBerry still exists as a software firm, but its imprint in the phone business has long since vanished.
10:51Which of these companies do you still remember?
10:53Let us know in the comments and don't forget to like and subscribe for more nostalgia-fueled top 10s.
10:58Sign up now for a free two-week trial at Blockbuster.com
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