FlipLive, the Camera That Never Made It, Was the Successor of the Flip

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As you may very well know, Cisco decided to flip the switch (pun intended) on the Flip camcorder line. What was once a very hot project worth investing millions into, became obsolete in just a few months. What the Flip can do is now accessible to any smartphone owner, so Cisco’s decision to stop Flip production and development seems to be the right one, at least at first sight.

But then, when we find out that a FlipLive product was just about to become official a day after Cisco announced Flip line termination plans it all becomes puzzlingly interesting. David Pogue, the famous geek on call at the New York Times shared a few interesting bits of information about the would-be future of the Flip.

It looks like a new product, the FlipLive, was supposed to be launched yesterday, and would have brought us an important feature of the Flip camcorder, live broadcasting over Wi-Fi to your friends and anyone else interested in watching you live at any event. That’s certainly an interesting feature for any device capable of recording HD video content and I’m sure plenty of users out there would have loved using this new feature. Unfortunately Cisco decided to cancel the Flip project, for no good reason, as some would say.

Well yeah, the fact that smartphones are catching up when it comes to video-recording capabilities, and that most point-and-shoot cameras are even better at capturing videos, are good enough reasons to terminate this product line. But the Flip had, or better said, still has, its own market share and mind share. Chances are that Cisco won’t change its mind on the future of the Flip, but that doesn’t mean current Flip owners will stop using the camcorder that pretty much changed the way we look at instant video recording.

Anyone looking to buy a Flip camera now that we know it’s basically a dead product?