The idea was that ESPN would exclusively sell a phone that offered exclusive ESPN content and video, leasing network access from Verizon Wireless. But ESPN had only one phone at launch, a Sanyo device selling for $400.
ESPN quickly shut down the service, instead providing content to Verizon's mobile internet service. And, of course, smartphones essentially obviated this entire concept.Sponsored mostly by Toshiba, HD-DVD was supposed to become the hi-def successor to the DVD when it launched in March 2006. Standalone HD-DVDs players were sold, and Microsoft's Xbox 360 — a wildly popular game console — sold an HD-DVD attachment .
But the Sony-led Blu-ray faction ended up winning the format war when Warner Bros. announced it was dumping . It certainly didn't hurt that Sony's PlayStation 3 game console had Blu-ray playback functionality built right in — the PlayStation 2 helped christen DVD as the dominant format previously, and the PlayStation 3 took that concept another step further.Joost, originally known as"The Venice Project," was supposed to be a peer-to-peer TV network for the future, invented by the European geniuses behind Skype.
Meanwhile, Joost had all sorts of problems with its P2P architecture, its bulky software player, its content library, and more. After launching in September 2007, it never took off; its