Shutting Down UltraViolet and Google+ — Why Do Apps Fail?

Recently, two big players in the social media and entertainment world joined countless other platforms in the digital graveyard.

The death of these two giants once again proves that even the biggest can fail. Millions in venture capital and an army of developers wasn’t enough to guarantee long-term success. Every few months it seems another ever so promising platform is added to the list of fallen. So the real question is, “Who will be next?”

Google+ was never extremely popular. It was slow to grow and after several redesigns was finally looking like something other than Facebook’s doppelganger. Communities were growing and posts were driving traffic, but not enough it seems to warrant server space. Limited features will still be available to business users.

UltraViolet, a digital movie manager or locker system run by the DECE (Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem), which is mainly a consortium of film studios and electronics manufacturers. They partnered with Vudu in 2012 (Walmart acquired Vudu in 2010). Their site claims the main reason for its closure is “… the emergence of services that provide expanded options for content collection and management independent of UltraViolet.”

The need for digital storage is most likely not very strong. Many aren’t interested in…