Does popularity with teens often kill a company?

Who here remember the Sidekick phones? Remember how they peaked in popularity among teens during the late 2000's, but when the iphone came out it declined in popularity as the company kept releasing phones that couldn't compete with new revolution of smartphones. Who here remembers Myspace, the popular social network site, that soon declined in popularity as soon as facebook gained traction. The orignal Razor phones, flip phones and so on?

Now BB is suffering from the same fate. As soon as the sidekick declined in popularity many teens flocked to the BB as it was the best alternative from the sidekick as Iphones were expensive to get, but once BB were being sold in high rates among teens it soon declined as the company stopped innovating to compete with IOS, and Android who soon picked up traction as well.

Could the same be happening with Apple as they are now so popular and not so much innovation is coming from them?

As a young adult I have seen many clothing, phones, and etc become so popular that once it declined the company that made the products were on the verge of going out of business or being bought out.

So do you think teens kill product lines?

I don't think it has anything to do with the teens, it's about the popularity. When you have the best device, you don't want to change it. Things are great, you're making millions. So you just sit back and watch them sell. But technology moves too quick for that. The moment you release a product you need to be already working on the next one.. we're all guilty of it. But I think the underdog is more motivated to go try something new.

Posted via CB10

So in other words its more like a tasting the humble pie for once.
I think BB should try and evolve their products. I feel that once the Goolge Glass is released the decline of the smartphone will happen.

Does popularity with teens often kill a company?
Actually quite the opposite.

Teens liked blackberry for bbm.

Never really thought of it that way OP because I always looked at BB as a business device not like a toy like apple or samsung.

Definitely not. Because of teens BB was doing so well at one point

Sent from my BlackBerry 9700 using Tapatalk

Teens flock to what ever social tool is the most popular. iPhone facilitated that expansion (Instagram, Vine....etc etc)

Create a social trigger, win the next leg of the tech race

Channels anyone?

Well I have seen many teens go from the sidekick to BB once the sidekick started to be deemed as not popular anymore. People switched to BB cause it was the best alternative to the sidekick and cheaper cause of the different models. But once the iphone became easier to get, and android became just as the same BB was deemed to be old. The funny thing is that adults started going with what teens were buying. Many business people still worked with BB but Iphones became the new thing. Smartphones before the iphone were targeted to different groups. I see it happening to iphone quite soon, if Apple don't start evolving, and then soon smartphones will be in the same position. Technology evolves.

More to do with huge growth than teens, but in BBRY's case, those 2 factors are intertwined. In any case, BBRY's current outlook seems to be for slow but stable growth either intentionally or otherwise.

Originally Posted by bigboybkrises

Well I have seen many teens go from the sidekick to BB once the sidekick started to be deemed as not popular anymore. People switched to BB cause it was the best alternative to the sidekick and cheaper cause of the different models. But once the iphone became easier to get, and android became just as the same BB was deemed to be old. The funny thing is that adults started going with what teens were buying. Many business people still worked with BB but Iphones became the new thing. Smartphones before the iphone were targeted to different groups. I see it happening to iphone quite soon, if Apple don't start evolving, and then soon smartphones will be in the same position. Technology evolves.

Wasn't the sidekick only available on tmobile?

Yeah it was but once it start going behind people started to leave it for BB

Sent from my LG-LS840 using CB Forums mobile app

I wouldn't specifically zone in on just the teen population. It most definitely is a popularity issue that everyone plays into.

I think that's a good thing. Cause BB can evolve itself, while Samsung Apple might fall behind with the smartphone market

Sent from my LG-LS840 using CB Forums mobile app

Originally Posted by bigboybkrises

Who here remember the Sidekick

I remember the program Sidekick - the best PIM for DOS - ever! :-)

and with the accessory "travelling sidekick" - a nice binder notebook - a solar powered calculator - it was just the best "computerized" PIM in existence...

Originally Posted by bigboybkrises

Yeah it was but once it start going behind people started to leave it for BB

Sent from my LG-LS840 using CB Forums mobile app

It got left behind because it was available on only one carrier, the budget gsm carrier (@ the time). Just like the kin and the storm on Verizon.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2

Originally Posted by FFR

Wasn't the sidekick only available on tmobile?

Yes, and T-Mobile probably had ~25 million customers at that time. Considering the fraction of those customers had the Sidekick, this probably was not a significant portion of the cell phone user population. Also, consider that we are just coming to the point of most teenagers having cell phones within the last five years, which is after the Sidekick phase, but lines up with the BlackBerry popularity among younger consumers.

As the younger consumers were presented with different choices to accomplish similar tasks, they went with the other choices. These choices were appealing because there was an added value for them. Something else will come along and people will choose something different from what is being chosen today. This applies to all consumers, regardless of age. You see this with the virtual non-existence of the personal handwritten letter sent via the US mail, and the decline of physical greeting cards. It's not just teenagers that drive these changes.

Walking used to be the best way to move, but then horses came into the forefront. Later, cars became the dominant mode....

Nothing in action here except the usual life cycle of products getting replaced by better ones. No sense in trying to read so much into it.

You have it wrong regarding the decline of the Sidekick. It wasn't because of teens flocking to the iPhone. It was because Microsoft bought out Danger. They put most of the Danger team to work on the stupid Kin devices and MS got careless and on October 2nd 2009 the data servers that held ALL information crashed and if the devices got shut off or rebooted all data was lost. The resulting outage lasted several days and even when the servers came back up all data wasn't able to be restored. No one trusted them after that, users started gravitating toward other devices (that's when I got my first BlackBerry), and eventually the Danger servers were shut down for good.

Originally Posted by pantlesspenguin

You have it wrong regarding the decline of the Sidekick. It wasn't because of teens flocking to the iPhone. It was because Microsoft bought out Danger. They put most of the Danger team to work on the stupid Kin devices and MS got careless and on October 2nd 2009 the data servers that held ALL information crashed and if the devices got shut off or rebooted all data was lost. The resulting outage lasted several days and even when the servers came back up all data wasn't able to be restored. No one trusted them after that, users started gravitating toward other devices (that's when I got my first BlackBerry), and eventually the Danger servers were shut down for good.

I remember that outage so well. I would have been so pissed if I had been a Sidekick user.
That really, really sucked because the data lost was no longer attainable after that.

I know several people who had or will not consider a new BlackBerry because of outages. They make jokes about BlackBerry outages, if one happens anywhere in the world no matter how isolated or short. They laugh and say glad I don't have I BlackBerry. As for popularity my teen daughter has moved to android. Along with most of her friends . They have also started to move away from LULU lemon to some other yoga pants company.

Posted via Z10