So why webOS failed?

I have just had a fresh look into webOS, and why it failed.



It is too open, too neutral.

Why would providers "forget" about their preferenced partners?

In webOS, twitter is just a "Service", and to twit is to perform a "webOS Action".

There's no point to put your brand out, it will still become a subdued "part of" webOS.

webOS will de-brand your service, aggregate it into it's common way of doing things.

Now if you're Google, Twitter or Facebook major internet (web) brand, would you want to step forward, and put your own "app" out, or would you be resenting to an almost empty corner of hp Catalog, the "Services & Actions" corner?

User also felt that something was amiss - the UI is so good that most of the usual parts were simply removed, not needed. In some minds, this was 'not rich enough'. People like to play with things, not necessarily focus on content.

It was mostly the same thing that killed the Atom blogging protocol - nobody likes to be de-branded for being inter-compatible.