Cisco Kills Flipcam

Amazing... or maybe not...

Cisco today announced that they would cease production of the Flipcam.

Just two years ago, Cisco bought the company for $590 million.

Today it will take a $300 million write off and fire all 550 employees.

What happened?

When flipcam first came out, it was a remarkable technological achiement.

We are still amazed when we see pieces shot with HD flipcams.  The quality is astonishing.

Flipcam put the power of video into the hands of millions - or had the potential to.

It was so good that everyone got the idea.

Everyone like Apple's iPhone.

Today there are nearly 4.6 billion smart phones in circulation around the world - and more and more of them have HD video cameras built in.

More and more of them are also going to start arriving with basic video editing software and the ability to upload direct to Youtube.

It's amazing how fast technology chows through their own.

One day's cutting edge technology is tomorrow's paperweight.

So the closing of Flipcam is not an indication of the failure of the concept of Personal Video - on the contrary, it is a tribute to its overwhelming success.

Cisco should get out of the hardware business and focus its considerable attentions to the problem of curating the tidal wave of video that is hitting us.

Someone has to come along to bring order to this

and a little training would not hurt either.