1975 – 2015retired
Betamax
“Lost the war, won our hearts, and always looked sharper doing it.”
“It asked who asked, and the crowd voted: rest well, Dory.”
Launched on September 25, 2008, Google Moderator let crowds rank the questions, suggestions and ideas that mattered most, so no voice got lost in a sea of submissions. Built by engineers Dave S. Young, Taliver Heath, and Colby Ranger in their 20% time and led by project manager Katie Jacobs Stanton, it was affectionately nicknamed Dory at Google, after the fish who asked questions all the time in Finding Nemo. People
Its finest hour came early, when President-elect Barack Obama's transition team used it in December 2008 for a public series called Open for Questions; the first run lasted less than 48 hours and drew 1 million votes from 20,000 participants. Google shut it down on June 30, 2015, after nearly seven years of service. What it left behind was simple and durable: the idea that if you give a crowd a vote box, it will tell
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“Lost the war, won our hearts, and always looked sharper doing it.”
“It recorded your shows and never once asked for a subscription. Rest easy.”
“It pushed your email so you didn't have to. Rest easy, Magneto.”