According to the Meriam-Webster dictionary, one of the meanings to the word “flop” is to fail completely and that is the major focus of today’s Lowyat.NET Editorial Team Super Unofficial Best of 2012 feature. Altogether, we have seen a fair number of flops – from products to marketing campaign – for the past 12 months that can’t be explained without involving a couple of face-palm gestures. Of course, some are much worst than the others and as painful as it feels to revisit them once again, what we have here are our picks for 2012.
Article continues after the jump.
Read the other parts of the Super Unofficial Best Of 2012!
Part 1: Game Of The Year
Part 2: Super Awesome Random Thing Of The Year
Part 3: Mobile Device Of The Year
Part 4: Meme Of The Year
Chapree – 1Malaysia Pad
The 1Malaysia Pad was first revealed to the public back in May and receives a lot of attention from the members of the public mainly for the wrong reasons. Not enough with having the highly-controversial 1Malaysia branding in its name, the whole 1Malaysia Pad business is rather sketchy right from day one – vague product description, poor marketing (the tablet’s website itself is never updated to this very day) and ridiculously high price tag of RM 999.
To be frank, none of us here at HQ have never experience the tablet ourselves but then again, we didn’t see it as stores either. To me, the 1Malaysia Pad is as good as vaporware which is a good thing actually because the idea of paying RM 999 for what looks like a rebranded low-priced Made-in-China tablet certainly doesn’t go too well in my book.
Huei – Apple Maps
A cartoon strip about iOS 6 Maps by The Joy of Tech.
Alright, in all honesty, I don’t think that Apple Maps or iOS Maps deserves to be awarded the Flop of the Year from me, it deserves to be called The Flop of the Century! When the Maps was first launched during the release of iOS 6 from Apple, the company bragged that it is “the most powerful” mapping service. It didn’t take too long for people to figure out that the iOS Map lacks in so many ways possible with its outdated database; people started comparing it to Google Maps, pointing out all the wrong locations and the lack of information it had. It was the sole reason why iOS users hesitated to update their OS and the reason why I hated myself for rushing into it.
The mapping service from Apple was soon made into an internet meme and received a blog of its own that pokes fun of its “bad sense of direction”. Tim Cook then issued an apology to all users, suggesting them to use alternate mapping services from its competitors. As an iOS user, all I want to say is, thank you Google for finally releasing a Google Maps app for my phone, I sure miss you over the past couple of months.
Pang – Facebook’s First Ad
After finding itself being host to one billion users, Facebook decided to release its first advertisement. Only, we didn’t get it. In fact, it was downright weird.
The ninety second clip shows some people on different types of chairs, and then equating Facebook as chairs, because chairs “are the things that connect us”. Huh? They didn’t stop there, as more random clips of doorbells, dance floors and a basketball game were displayed in rapid succession, before concluding that those random things (including Facebook) were created to remind people that they are not alone.
[youtube width=”580″ height=”326″]c7SjvLceXgU[/youtube]
Naturally, it didn’t take long for the parodies to come in with full force. One video states that toilets are like Facebook. One website called Are Chairs Like Facebook simply has the words “NO” on it. Another lets you overwrite “Chairs” with any other word, and the background will change according to context, leading to hilarious results.
However, it remains a mystery why Facebook would choose chairs to describe their social network, and for that reason is my pick for Flop of the Year.
Notable runner-up: The supposed Mayan prediction of the “end of the world” in December 21, and the subsequent expansive media coverage of the day that wasn’t.
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