
Show HN: Product Graveyard – Commemorating the most memorable dead products - ndduong
http://productgraveyard.com/?ref=hn
======
ndduong
Hi, I'm the creator of Product Graveyard, a fun way to keep track of and
commemorate our favorite products that are with us no more.

I worked on this as a side project during my summer internship at Siftery. For
building the site, I used a bootstrap grid for front-end structure and node.js
to help with filtering and inserting the data.

Please join in by contributing a funny story or eulogy for one of the featured
products.

~~~
al452
Excellent site, love it.

I can't provide a funny story or eulogy, but have a scary one... "Microsoft
Lync" [item 10 on the list right now] is not dead, it's
aaaalllliiiiivvveeeee...

Those of us who work in the nightmare planes, where Microsoft products are
mandated, once hoped that Microsoft's "Skype for Business" would bring us a
bit of non-corporate real-world better-because-it-had-to-compete-on-its-own-
merits product to save us from the eternal pain of Lync.

But no, it turned out that "Skype for Business" REALLY IS just Lync, with only
two changes. 1) rebranding 2) somehow, despite changing almost nothing, they
managed to break copy-and-paste, it doesn't work reliably any more

It's a zombie horror story!

~~~
arthurcolle
I actually like Lync. Why don't you?

~~~
js8
I hate it, for several reasons (some of it could be user error or local
configuration, but still):

\- For a long time, the status of other users it showed was completely off.
Like showing people online when they weren't. Also, sending messages sometimes
mysteriously failed.

\- Cannot copy conversation as text (formatting is messed up). Cannot save it
as text without removing smileys.

\- Cannot paste text verbatim into conversation without making silly smileys
everywhere.

\- There is a (relatively small) limit on how much text you could paste in.

\- Couldn't transfer certain files (like .js or .exe).

Many of these things make sense for things like unmoderated chat, but I need
to work, and sometimes exchange larger amounts of text and binary data.

~~~
nkrisc
I'd add: completely unreliable conversation history. I never figured out why
it saved some messages but not others.

~~~
murph-almighty
Basically why I loved it when we started using Slack.

------
mmanfrin
I'm still sore about Google Reader. I haven't found another reader that has
quite found the right UX to replace it.

~~~
xeno42
[https://bazqux.com/](https://bazqux.com/) was the closest i found in terms of
UI and performance with the amount of feeds/items i go through (~1000
items/day) - Been pretty happy with it since Google Reader shutdown

~~~
jacquesm
How on earth do you manage to keep up with 1000 items / day? I barely manage
1/10th of that and I'm a pretty fast reader.

Please enlighten me, it sounds like you hold a secret that would substantially
improve my life.

~~~
xeno42
I don't read 1000/day, but I do step through 1,000 - I scan a
headline/summary, hit "j" and move on for the vast majority of them. Some i'll
star and come back to later, for others the first sentence of the summary is
really enough to learn something about what's going on.. eg "vulnerability
found in XYZ" is useful to tuck away in the back of my mind, but that's all i
need.

Others are the same story reported by multiple sources; obvious from the
headline.

I leave it open in a pinned tab and when i want to kill a minute or two, i'll
scan through a few more posts and open a few to actually read.

The reason i like Bazqux is that it can keep up no matter how fast i hit "j".
It's no prettier than Google Reader does, has few more bells/whistles, but if
you really want to speed through items, save and search, it's great.

In reality, I would like something that combined Bazqux with some ML to
recognize that an item is a dupe, or something i'm really not likely to be
interested in and filter those thousand items down to a few hundred, but i've
yet to see anything really achieve that.

~~~
jacquesm
Thank you!

> In reality, I would like something that combined Bazqux with some ML to
> recognize that an item is a dupe, or something i'm really not likely to be
> interested in and filter those thousand items down to a few hundred, but
> i've yet to see anything really achieve that.

About a decade ago - when the state of the art really wasn't up to it yet - I
invested some money in a start-up that was attempting to achieve just that.
They eventually turned to greener pastures and are still alive but I am still
hopeful that someone will manage to put this together. I'd be more than happy
to pay for such a thing.

~~~
nthcolumn
Which reminds me of another dead product I used to use to do exactly this:
Yahoo Pipes.

------
onion2k
What I find really interesting about lists like this one is that _many_ of the
entries are really great ideas that only failed due to poor timing or bad luck
or a single error. The fact that someone failed to build something huge the
first time around is not evidence that copying one of the entries wouldn't
work now. It's just really hard to know which idea might work if it launched
today instead of two years ago.

------
tradersam
Funny story, Lync[1] still exists. Actually it was an update _to_ Skype for
Business, at least on our systems at work.

I'm using it right this minute:
[http://imgur.com/a/qQ648](http://imgur.com/a/qQ648)

[http://productgraveyard.com/products/lync.html](http://productgraveyard.com/products/lync.html)

~~~
strictnein
Officially, Lync became Skype for Business. In reality, Skype for Business is
the hellspawn of Skype and Lync.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype_for_Business](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype_for_Business)

------
bicx
It's sobering to look at all these products and think about how developers
poured thousands of hours into something that no longer exists.

~~~
peckrob
This is actually one of the reasons I do a lot of non-tech hobbies like
woodworking and making wine. So much of what I do is ephemeral. It exists as
bits stored in a computer, it not something I can physically touch. Literally
everything I've ever written at work could, and probably will, cease to exist
one day.

But the wine rack I made and the bottles in it aren't going anywhere. Well,
okay the bottles will, but there will be more. :)

~~~
balladeer
I have never tried it but I increasingly find myself pulled by carpentry. I
have no solid reasoning for this. It's just a connotation if I may say so. So
feel of the wooden furniture. My thoughts about preserving them and how I like
antique or older (and actually simpler but functional) study desks. How,
whenever I think of buying one, I never find the exact study desk I want and
it seems like a good idea to make my own. I think I should just get a kit and
start with something simpler like a sitting stool, or a pen holder.

~~~
robotmay
Do it! :) I do green wood carving myself, which is very satisfying, but when I
have the space I'm definitely going to start making my own furniture. A desk
is high up the list, as I don't think I've found a single one that works for
me.

------
mfrommil
Missing one of my all-time favorite dead products: Google Wave

~~~
onion2k
That was adopted by the Apache Foundation and is still under active
development. It was opened up and turned in to "Wave In A Box" that you can
run on your own server.
[https://incubator.apache.org/wave/](https://incubator.apache.org/wave/)

------
wingerlang
If you had a newsletter like "new dead website of the month" if something
died, I'd sign up.

I also would appreciate a gallery of screenshot for each product to get a feel
for what it was.

~~~
shinamee
No need to constantly email anyone for dead products but the gallery is a very
good idea.

~~~
wingerlang
Well it would be like once per month, 6 months or even once a year. The issue
with not doing it is that I will never ever open the site again. But if I got
an email in a year I'd definitely do it to see what died, if anything.

------
AndrewKemendo
I feel the worst for Meerkat. They basically had a few weeks between blowing
up huge at SXSW and then getting effectively shut down by Twitter with the
launch of Periscope.

No justice in this world.

~~~
AznHisoka
I see it as fair karma. They relied on a Big Bang "lucky event" in SXSW and
just as quickly got shut down. Perfect justice.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
What? Bad karma for doing PR at a big technology event? Let me guess, you fall
into the "anyone doing marketing is bad" camp.

~~~
AznHisoka
no. what i meant is that they relied on 1 lucky event to get big. and it took
just 1 unlucky event to bring them down. so it evens out.

------
akeruu
I really like the tone and the realization.

Just a small thing that bother me is that on my desktop machine, the second
column is not aligned as neatly as the others (due to two lines descriptions
maybe ?)

~~~
ndduong
Hmm, that's strange. I'm not seeing it on my desktop. Do you mind posting a
screenshot of it?

~~~
slmkbh
For me they all get more and more misaligned:
[https://imgur.com/gallery/QUDuE](https://imgur.com/gallery/QUDuE)

FF 55.0.2 on Ubuntu 16.04.3 with uBlock and Privacy Badger

------
franciscop
From the feedback here in HN it seems clear that you need a "suggest product"
button. Maybe it could even be a Disqus on the bottom on the home page, which
would automatically give you up/down votes functionality (;

~~~
ndduong
We actually do have a suggest product button on Product Graveyard! If you
click into any of the products and click the "Submit Autopsy Report" button in
the nav bar, it should take you to a form where you can suggest which product
we should feature next. Here is the direct link to it: [https://siftery-
track.typeform.com/to/n5IT7u](https://siftery-track.typeform.com/to/n5IT7u)

~~~
subroutine
In that case, I believe the suggestion changes to... make it more
discoverable.

Overall though, I think the site is great!

Man, I totally didn't realize that Vine died. It feels like just yesterday I
was... watching Vines on YouTube. hmm

~~~
ndduong
Thanks for the feedback! I just made the button more visible by placing it on
the nav bar of the home page.

------
dspillett
If you are going that far back how about including the original LapLink (and
intersvr in MSDOS6 that implemented similar features). Pushing files over
null-modem or the parallel port equivalent for extra speed was a godsend back
when proper networking was relatively rare at home (or in small offices) so
floppy-net was the main alternative.

The company still exists (was "Travelling Software, now renamed to Laplink
Software) but obviously that specific product is pretty meaningless in today's
environment unless you are playing with museum-piece hardware for
nostalgia/shits/giggles.

------
ghostly_s
I love everything about this except the name. To laypeople, "product" !=
"software product", and it's revealing your bias. Why don't you just call it
Software Graveyard?

~~~
ndduong
That's a valid point. There's definitely a software bias now, but the name
product is more extensible. I just added 4 more featured products today and
will be adding more in the future!

------
arscan
Great job, this is a fun concept that is well executed.

I was going to add Geocities, but I was surprised to find out that it is still
available in Japan. Anyone have insight as to why Yahoo kept it alive in that
market?

~~~
toast0
Yahoo! Japan was a joint partnership of Yahoo! and SoftBank. From what I could
tell while working at Yahoo!, Yahoo Japan was able to use whatever software
they wanted from Y!, but whatever they developed wasn't accessibly by the rest
of Y!

So, they had their own installation of geocities, and didn't need to take it
down. Yahoo auctions _is_ also big in Japan, but was killed everywhere else.
(Edit: change was to is)

~~~
hkmurakami
Yahoo Auctions in Japan is still the market leader today! :P

~~~
toast0
Sorry, I've edited, I left Y! a while ago, and didn't follow the japanese
auction market, so I wasn't sure if it was still the leader.

~~~
hkmurakami
I think Mercari has a legit chance of catching them, but YA is definitely the
leader.

You know you've made it when you get a Truncation nickname in Japan (sort of
like the Hollywood couples names like bennifer) "yafuoku"

------
CM30
Congrats on making such a neat site! It's quite interesting to see all the
dead products and services that (often) never quite achieved their full
potential.

That said, one thing does bother me here, and I'm not sure whether it's a
mistake or not.

Basically, the all products lists don't seem to link to the individual pages
for the closed products. In most cases that's likely fine (since I doubt you
have separate pages for every single product listed), but it would be
convenient to have them link to the product's page for more details when
they're available.

[http://productgraveyard.com/see-all-
products-a.html](http://productgraveyard.com/see-all-products-a.html)

Other than that, it looks pretty good.

------
hasselstrom1
Upvoted on PH as well - You did a great job mate. Well done on the UI and the
concept.

------
daxfohl
Huh, I knew I had a zombie bitcasa account that I assumed I'd been paying for
but was too lazy to cancel, and was surprised to see it on your list! I think
there's a market for a product that individually curates a person's
miscellaneous accounts (say it watches your bank/credit card accounts or
whatever) and alerts them when fees increase or the company goes bankrupt or
it looks like a zombie account (and maybe offer to close it for $10 ($30 for
comcast)).

------
roryisok
Great site, brings back memories. A few little issues I found

1\. On mobile I have to scroll past all the featured products to get to "all
products". A link at the top or a hamburger menu would be great!

2\. No search?

3\. "all products" doesn't appear to include "featured products"? For instance
Picasa and Google reader are in featured but not in all.

Other than that its a lovely design and a good concept. Well done.

~~~
ndduong
Thanks for the feedback. There's now a navigation bar for easy access to "all
products". All products should include featured products now, and I will be
implementing search in the near future :)

------
srcmap
I love google desktop search (RIP 2011.)

Last year I found a windows version of it online and found it still usable
even in windows 10. Very unsafe I know - I did use ProcExploer+VirusTotal to
check its binary signatures on 60+ scanner sites.

It still much better/faster than the native Win10 Cortana search.

Love know if there any open source clone of it?

------
snth12oentoe0
Love the site! However, it looks like you have some apps listed on the main
page, but not in the list of all apps. For example, I submitted Aperture
because I couldn't find it in the "A" section of the list of all apps. But I
see that it is actually there on the main page near the bottom.

~~~
ndduong
Thanks for the feedback! I just fixed that issue. All featured products should
show up in the list of all products now.

------
SippinLean
>Fireworks was not a unique child. It was not different from Photoshop or
Illustrator so Adobe shut it down.

That's not true, it was notably different than the two, it was replaced by
Adobe XD.

------
warrenm
Code Warrior

~~~
MikeTheGreat
Oh man - this is gone?

I mean, yeah, it's been like 20 years so I'm not surprised

But it's still sad

~~~
TorKlingberg
The name is still used on NXPs IDE for their chips, but it's a new Eclipse-
based thing, not based on the old one.

------
protomyth
I still miss Lotus Improv (I think it not on the list).

------
tolgahanuzun
Wow, I remember the times I used LimeWire. It was a nice service with the
alternatives offered.

------
leoharsha2
They should've added Orkut. Met my first girlfriend in that platform.

~~~
ndduong
Thanks for the feedback! I just added Orkut :)
[http://productgraveyard.com/products/orkut.html](http://productgraveyard.com/products/orkut.html)

------
unixhero
No submit button?

Ok here then:

Foldershare

Great peer to peer file sync tool.

Acquired by Microsoft and shut down. _Slowly shaking head_

~~~
simpleigh
"Submit autopsy report" is in the top navigation bar, although it links to an
external form service: [https://siftery-
track.typeform.com/to/n5IT7u](https://siftery-track.typeform.com/to/n5IT7u).

------
warrenm
Microsoft Bob

------
prabhasp
Google wave!

~~~
ndduong
Added!

------
paxy
Bit premature to list Flash..

~~~
ggiaco
Is it though? Giving it until 2020 might end up being generous
[http://productgraveyard.com/products/flash.html](http://productgraveyard.com/products/flash.html)

------
quickthrower2
Mtgox? Liberty Reserve?

------
warrenm
BeOS

~~~
Semiapies
Related, Gobe Productive. Vaguely similar to Microsoft Works in that it
incorporated basic word processing, spreadsheet and vector art functionality,
but you could do all three as tabs within any single document.

Originally came out for BeOS, then there was a Windows version.

