Media & Entertainment

The platforms that entertained the world — and what replaced them.

Entries in this category (20)

• Blockbuster — The video-rental empire that passed on buying Netflix
• Sony — Japan's electronics giant that reinvented itself — twice
• Technics — Maker of the SL-1200 turntable — the instrument that built hip-hop
• MySpace — The first social network to rule the world — for about three years
• Borders — The big-box bookseller that Amazon and the e-book switched off
• Atari — The company that invented the video game boom - and the crash
• Yahoo — The internet's first giant that fumbled the future
• AirAsia (now Capital A Berhad) — The budget airline that got hit hard by COVID — and reinvented itself as a broader holding company
• Amiga — The 1985 computer with custom chips that outran everything at its price, sold about 4.9 million units, died with Commodore in 1994 — and whose trademark has since passed through Escom, Gateway, Amiga Inc, Cloanto and Hyperion
• AT&T — Ma Bell — the century-long telephone monopoly that dismantled itself to save its future
• GeoCities — The 1990s home of free personal homepages and colorful "neighborhoods" — shut down by Yahoo in 2009
• iTunes — Apple's digital music store and player that revolutionised how we bought music — now replaced by Apple Music and apps
• Memorex — The "Is it live or is it Memorex?" tape brand that ruled magnetic media — still around as a licensed name
• Microsoft Encarta — The encyclopedia on a disc that taught a generation to look things up — until the open web made it obsolete
• Napster — The file-sharing service that revolutionised music, was shut down, and survives today as a streaming brand
• Popular Bookstore — The home-grown Singapore bookstore chain that put assessment books in every schoolbag — and is now closing the branches that raised generations of readers
• Prodigy — The IBM–Sears online service that was a pre-AOL pioneer — its classic service shut down in 1999
• Rubik's Cube — The Hungarian teaching aid that became a 1980s fad, died, and came back as a sport — built today by companies that could only exist because the patent ran out
• Sega — The arcade and console giant that took on Nintendo, produced the Sega Dreamcast — and then exited the hardware race
• Thai Airways International — Thailand's national carrier that nearly collapsed in the pandemic, then staged one of aviation's great recoveries