Jumped the shark

In my last post, I talked at (perhaps too much) length about the end of Starbucks, and came to the conclusion that the brand jumped the shark the day they started offering those breakfast sandwiches. Which got me onto a new train of thought. What else has jumped the shark of late?

For those who don't know, the term "jumping the shark" comes from an episode of Happy Days in which Fonzie straps on water skis and literally jumps over a shark. That was the day, many say, the show lost its mojo and began to slide into the dark waters of oblivion. It is an accepted phrase among TV buffs, but I don't see why it can't be extended to other aspects of life.

With that, here is my list of Silicon Valley shark jumpers:

1. Email. Now that we have Twitter, why exactly are we forced to communicate via this clunky and overly permissive medium? As we now know, if you can't say it in 140 characters, maybe you just need to shut up. Or start a blog.

2. Web 2.0. What was that going to be, exactly?

3. PCs. Can't we all just admit that Mac has won and get on with it?

4. Facebook. Our parents are on there. Our grandparents are on there. Nuff said.

5. Google. I know people still use it all the time for search, docs, and what have you. Some of us still believe in Blogger. But do we think about the fact that we use it? No. It's just not interesting anymore.

6. Scoble.

7. The "killer app." Someday, we were once told, there would be this like, unifying app that would bring together everything--everything!--on the web. Umm. No, there won't. And I for one am tired of worrying about it.

8. VC funding. (See above, Web 2.0)

9. YouTube. (See above, Google)

10. Vlogging. I don't know where that went, but it is definitely gone now.