A device launched to help children communicate with loved ones during the pandemic is going away.
Among the characteristics of corporate culture at Amazon (AMZN) – Get Amazon.com Inc. Report is a fearless approach to releasing new products into the marketplace. Equally, the company is quick about bailing on products that don’t line up with its plans for success. The philosophy is often referred to as “fail fast, fail often,” which is also the main part of the title of a book by John D. Krumboltz and Ryan Babineaux. For Amazon, learning from failure is an important exercise all its own.
One example of a product that Amazon pulled the plug on in relatively expeditious fashion was Crucible, the free multiplayer game that never came anwhere near the number of concurrent players needed to make a profit. Other products on the fail fast list were Amazon Restaurants, Fire Phone and Pop-up stores, a kiosk program where gadget customers could experiment with products such as Echo before they bought them.
Of course, it isn’t only major corporation that embraces the idea of failure as a necessary component of growth and success. The quotation “I never lose, I either win or learn” is widely attributed to Nelson Mandela. And there is a 1997 Nike commercial where basketball great Michael Jordan can be heard saying, “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
Which brings us to the tale of Amazon Glow, a product whose discontinuation was announced October 4 after only a year in production.
A Kids’ Product For the Pandemic
On September 28, 2021 the Amazon Glow was introduced. The company promoted it as a new way of bringing families together in the interest of both learning and fun. Kids could talk with and see family members remotely on an eight-inch screen while also reading stories, playing games and even creating art by means of a 19-inch touch-sensitive mat placed horizontally in front of the Glow device. Concurrently, family and friends could themselves use an app to communicate with and see the child remotely. The device even came with an annual subscription to Amazon Kids+.
Posted to TikTok by @amazonglow, the device and mat can be seen in action in the below video.
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The product was seen as a vital tool for kids in the face of the coronavirus pandemic because it allowed them to communicate with loved ones in a way that was meaningful for children. Now that isolation and quarantine protocols have become more or less things of the past, the necessity for creative means of human connection has become less important, as children have thankfully returned to more traditional ways of interacting.
Amazon Confirms It’s Ending Production
So the product is now officially discontinued. The news was first reported by Bloomberg, and Amazon has confirmed the company is ceasing production of the device.
“At Amazon we think big, experiment, and invest in new ideas to delight customers,” a spokesperson said. “We also continually evaluate the progress and potential of our products to deliver customer value, and we regularly make adjustments based on those assessments. We will be sharing updates and guidance with Glow customers soon.”
Amazon has also announced cost-cutting measures that, combined with other similar moves from technology companies, are making investors nervous about a softening economy. The company says it is freezing hiring in its retail division, which includes Amazon Prime, online and physical stores, and its third-party sellers marketplace.
