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Get a group of people together to talk about technology and inevitably the conversation will turn to classic technology flops. Whether it was a technology that disappointed, failed to deliver or was just out-and-out hated, people like to talk about technologies that failed as much, or maybe even more, than technologies that succeeded.

But the interesting thing about technology flops is that none of them started out as failures. In fact, it is quite the opposite: In nearly all cases, classic technology flops started out as very promising and highly touted innovations.

So how does a promising technology go from burgeoning star to tossed-aside has-been? In most cases they follow a clear path on their journey to the technology garbage heap.

I call this path the Six Phases of a Technology Flop. In this list I detail the six phases and as an example I've used one of the most classic cases of a promising technology that became a major flop, Push technology.

So read my list and let me know what you think.