As many have recognized, when inventions and innovations first appear they are often (always) labeled as “toys” or “incapable” of doing “real work” or providing “real entertainment”. Of course, many new inventions don’t work out the way inventors had hoped, though quite frequently it is just a matter of timing and the coming together of a variety of circumstances. It can be said that being labeled a toy is necessary, but not sufficient, to become the next big thing.

This got me thinking about all the conferences, trip reports, and new products I have looked at over many years. Sure turns out that a huge number of things in my own career were labeled as toys — not just by me, but by an industry at large. Here’s a (could not possibly be complete) list of “toys” starting from when I got into computing.

— Steven

PS: What would you add?

PPS: Sure, we can quibble about the dates!

1981—“PC is a toy”

1982—“C programming language is a toy”

1983 — “PC Mouse is a toy”

1984 — “Mac is a toy”

1985 — “PC Networking is a toy”

1986 — “GUI is a toy”

1987 — “GUI is a toy”

1987 — “Color screen is a toy”

1988 — “AI is a toy”

1989 — “Digital PC sound is a toy”

1990 — “C++ programming language is a toy”

1991 — “Linux is a toy”

1992 — “Graphical Development is a toy”

1993 — “Digital camera is a toy”

1994 — “PC Server is a toy”

1994 — “Streaming is a toy”

1994— “PC Camera is a toy”

1995 — “Internet is a toy”

1996 — “Java [and JavaScript] programming language is a toy”

1997 — “Wi-Fi is a toy”

1998 — “AI is a toy (again)”

1999 — “Email on a pager is a toy”

2000 — “Peer to Peer is a toy”

2001—“Intranet is a toy”

2002 — “SMS [in the US] is a toy”

2003 — “VOIP is a toy”

2005—“Flash storage is a toy”

2005— “Internet video is a toy”

2006—“Facebook is a toy”

2007 — “Touch is a toy”

2008— “Mobile App is a toy”

2010 — “Cloud is a toy”

— Steven Sinofsky

Postscript. I’ve been asked quite a few times out of band about the criteria for inclusion in this list. For each included product/tech I have in mind a pretty specific story/moment when I was either claiming it was a toy or was involved in a friendly debate over it’s toyness. For most all of these, a few web searches and you can find a pundit at the time doing his/her best to demonstrate said toyness as well.