
Flip to flop: the pocket camcorder flash in the pan - jseliger
https://www.dpreview.com/articles/3814916753/flip-to-flop-the-pocket-camcorder-flash-in-the-pan
======
ilamont
This was a big deal before the rise of the smartphone. No cables. Great video
(relatively speaking) even in low-light conditions. Good audio. Simple
interface. Inexpensive. I used it for work (online publishing) and my kids
loved it, too.

Compared to the Japanese camcorders that required cables, cassettes, and an
80-page manual to figure out, the Flip was a no-brainer for people who just
wanted an easy way to shoot video and get it on their computer.

But, as others have noted, what the heck was Cisco thinking? IIRC, the company
wanted to push into expensive "telepresence" systems but I don't see how the
Flip fit into this vision.

ETA: My pet theory is Cisco corporate strategists or the CEO believed the spin
put out by Flip and its investors. Maybe another company was circling, too.

~~~
jerryr
Around the time of the Pure Digital acquisition, Cisco was making a push into
the home. They started buying up consumer brands like Flip and Linksys. I
can't speak to why--perhaps their enterprise growth had slowed due to the
recession? Anyways, they floundered with the consumer brands for a while
before killing them (Flip) or selling them off (Linksys). People hypothesize
that the rise of smartphones killed off Flip, but I really believe it was the
Cisco acquisition that killed it. I think Flip could have otherwise survived
for a few more years out of a tail of slow adopters before pivoting to a
GoPro-type market.

I worked on the Flip Mino, but as a consultant, not a Pure Digital employee. I
followed them fairly closely, but didn't have much inside information, so the
above is just my own hypothesis. Though OP's article seems to have come to the
same conclusion.

------
adolph
One of the thing Flip did right was device-video orientation. Even though the
device was held vertically which fit naturally in a hand, the video was
recorded horizontally. The original iPhone may have done a disservice to the
world by matching the orientation of the camera to the screen.

~~~
cx1000
I have a feeling that someday many of our old pictures and videos archived to
google photos or hard drives will be consumed on large widescreen devices.
When that time comes I think we will all regret the vertical videos of today
and wonder what the heck we were thinking. I imagine Apple could add a setting
to the iPhone easily enough to never take portrait mode video.

~~~
SamReidHughes
The problem is, presumably, the shape and orientation of the camera itself.

------
jseliger
I actually had one of these and really liked it
([https://jakeseliger.com/2011/05/08/will-we-ever-find-out-
wha...](https://jakeseliger.com/2011/05/08/will-we-ever-find-out-what-
happened-to-flip-video/)). It's a shame that the company was bought and then
shuttered by Cisco. Most cameras today still don't do the kinds of sharing
activities that Flip was ready to roll out back in 2010 - 11.

~~~
throwanem
My DSLR doesn't, sure. But most cameras today are built into phones, and
phones absolutely do.

Even if Cisco hadn't killed Flip when they did, this decade's smartphones
would have not long after.

~~~
dagw
_Even if Cisco hadn 't killed Flip when they did, this decade's smartphones
would have not long after._

GoPro did pretty well for in world full of smartphones. The Flip could have
become that if there had been some innovative people in charge,

~~~
ghaff
From a technology standpoint maybe, but very different branding and very
different marketing focus. Arguably GoPro had relative little other than
marketing to a specific demographic (and all the promo and channel activity
associated with it) although it did have waterproof/rugged vs. cell phones.

~~~
Terretta
It's not the marketing and branding. It's the tech.

Cell phones don't attach to helmets and other sports gear: too big, not
rugged, not waterproof, not aerodynamic. And it's really hard to text your
friends while the phone's strapped to your head.

~~~
ghaff
I didn't make my point clearly. Flip could have built a waterproof action cam
very easily. But the hard thing GoPro did was marketing it, not building it.

I also agree that action cams have a market niche that cell phones can't
easily fill. Though that seems to have declined as a lot of people have
realized they like the idea of being great adventurers but they don't actually
base jump :-)

------
gm-conspiracy
Still miss my Sony Mavica digital camera that took 3.5" disks.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Mavica#Digital_still_came...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Mavica#Digital_still_cameras_with_storage_on_3.5.22_floppy_disk)

~~~
dagw
We had one of those at work. It was surprisingly handy to be able to put in
your own disk take some pictures, pop out the disk, and hand the camera back.
We could also take some pictures for a client and just hand them a floppy
while at their office or in the field without having to worry about finding a
computer and copying them over.

~~~
LgWoodenBadger
That workflow is no different than today with SDCards or CompactFlash cards.

~~~
dagw
Most people don't have piles of SDcards just lying around, nor do most people
feel happy with just giving away the SDcard they happen to have in their
camera if someone wants to keep a few photos they took.

~~~
digi_owl
I wonder how much that would change if one could get SDs in a box of 10 or
more at a time, rather than having to grab them individually from the rack.

Same thing with optical. I can get a spindle of 50 blanks, so handing off a
couple would not bother me.

~~~
cr0sh
I don't know about current cameras, but most of my old cameras have the SD
card slot on the inside of the battery compartment or somewhere else kinda
inconvenient (and forget about it on most phones - if it's accessible at all).

The thing about the Mavica was that the floppy just popped in and out on the
side, just like a floppy drive. Nothing difficult about swapping in a new
floppy.

Now - if your world of cheap SDs in 10 packs came about, hopefully the
manufacturers would put the card slot in an easy/intuitively accessible areas
(and make it easy to pop one in and out - likely using one of the auto-locking
push in to release mechanisms).

At this point, though, it doesn't really matter - your phone backs the pics up
to the cloud, it's easy to share them from there (or just click on the pic(s)
and "share" via umpteen billion options).

It's a nice thought, and I know you don't mean it seriously - the world's
moved on, I guess...

------
zeckalpha
Missing part of the history: Flip was a spin off of the CVS One Time Use
Camcorder that was hacked to be reusable. Hackers showed there was a market
for this in the first place.

Additionally, I would attribute the rise of the smart phone more than the
Cisco acquisition as the end of the Flip.

~~~
jerryr
And before the camcorder, they did a single-use still camera too. Here's an
old press release about it: [https://cvshealth.com/newsroom/press-
releases/cvs-launches-w...](https://cvshealth.com/newsroom/press-releases/cvs-
launches-worlds-first-digital-one-time-use-camera-color-preview-screen)

------
pavement
The weirdest part about the flip was that it almost seemed like Cisco acquired
it to kill it off. It had such a strong ad campaign, and then it just
evaporated?

Looking back at that moment in time, it seemed a little too early to catch the
wave of youtube fame and stardom, but had it been a little later, and a little
more refined (and maybe with some endorsement deals or product/service
alignment) it seems as though it could have been the kind of product that
could land itself in the hands of most youtubers as the preferred video
recorder for capture and uploading.

But I guess high-end cell phones and the nightmare of Windows 8 (and weak or
absent linux support) probably also had a hand in sealing the flip's fate.

~~~
ghaff
Cisco has tended to have issues with consumer brands. With respect to the Flip
specifically, it was hot for a time but probably ultimately not a long-term
product niche. By the time, everyone was taking and sharing video, they were
doing it on cell phones. There's still a market for standalone video but it's
mostly high-end (and often it's DSLRs).

