Microsoft Kin
A billion dollars. Forty-eight days.
CAUSE OF DEATH: Verizon stopped selling it within two months because of poor sales.
Microsoft spent two years and about $1 billion building the Kin, a social phone, after buying the company behind it for a rumored $500 million. It unveiled the phones at a San Francisco nightclub. One ad showed a teenage boy putting the phone under his shirt, photographing his chest and sending the picture to a girl. The social feed updated on a 15-minute delay. The Kin went on sale on May 14, 2010. Microsoft discontinued it on June 30, after 48 days. Verizon sent the unsold phones back. Microsoft executives told The New York Times they were dismayed that Verizon's staff were not pushing it. That works out to roughly $20 million per day of shelf life.