The story of the flip is fascinating. It was launched at the perfect time : camcorders were expensive and difficult to use. Hardware was cheap, youtube was grow

The story of the flip is fascinating. It was launched at the perfect time : camcorders were expensive and difficult to use. Hardware was cheap, youtube was growing like crazy and here came the flip that took advantage of all these trends to create a product that became a super hit. But it had a short shelf life with the launch of the iphone 3gs and other smart phones that could essentially do the same thing. To me the flip is a great example of a company that identified a profitable niche took advantage of industry trends and made max $$ in the few years that it was around. Too bad, cisco you were too late to the party.