I read an interesting post on The Verge today: The Lost Secrets of WebOS. For those not familiar with WebOS, it was Palm’s last gasp before HP finally killed it. The article makes a brief mention of upcoming LG TVs that will run WebOS before launching into an interesting discussion of the software’s history.
I was a heavy Palm user back in the day, and it’s interesting to realize that the whole Palm ecosystem is virtually extinct. Hardware, software, accessories, app stores (before today’s current app store model came into existence) – all gone.
That actually makes me think of some housecleaning I did a few weeks ago. It was time to go through my password app and clear out those old usernames and passwords I no longer use. Of course there were logins for a number of Palm-related apps and services that don’t exist anymore. There was an online game from a major entertainment company, a library service from a major content provider, and even services such as Gowalla and Meebo. Of course the last one made me think about all the services that Google has developed or acquired and then terminated.
When the (conservative) housecleaning was complete, I had deleted over 40 usernames. I could probably delete at least that many more without much effort. For me it was an interesting reminder of the rise and fall of tech services. Ars Technica has an interesting and somewhat related article: Ars deathwatch 2014: Companies on the edge of relevance.
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