The Best Products to Come in Second Place

Typically, consumer and retail loyalty goes to the best products. As the cliche goes: Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.

Sometimes, however, the best just isn't good enough.

Quality is often subjective. Consider stereo equipment: An audiophile may speak glowingly of midrange tones, while the typical consumer really only cares about pumping bass, a cool label or a pretty display.

A critically acclaimed movie can be a dud at the box office and more people buy Big Macs each day than filet mignon. Quality isn't the only predictor of success.

The following are examples of product! s that - - both subjectively and objectively -- were hailed as the top of their class, but nevertheless failed.

Betamax loses alpha status
A legendary tale of superiority losing its quest for market dominance is the oft-revisited battle between VHS and Betamax.

The former was pioneered by JVC, the latter by Sony(SNE).

Much like the later battle between HD DVD and Blu-ray, the late 1970s saw the formats competing for market share (along with a long list of other technologies that never gained traction).

VHS had one advantage over Betamax -- a longer recording time per cassettes -- while Betamax had objectively superior image quality. The problem for Sony is that consumers cared more about tape length. As home recording became more popular, the one-hour max recording time didn't offer enough space. The typical running time of most films made the better-looking, but far too short recordings of Betamax problematic, especially as the video rental market developed.

And then there was porn. Sony, in a decision it may regret, locked itself out of the lucrative market for X-rated fare by refusing to allow pornography to be sold on its format.

By 1988, Sony started inching toward VHS and in 2002 stopped production on Betamax.

The Zune: An 'iPod killer' gets killed
You know a product is in trouble when even the company that makes it isn't! sure wh ether it is still available.

You can forgive consumers if they have been confused in recent months about the state of the Zune, Microsoft's(MSFT) attempt at an iPod killer. For months, all signs pointed to the end. There was a lack of marketing, unclear manufacturing numbers and Wal-Mart(WMT) stopped selling it.

On its Web site this past spring, Microsoft posted a discontinuation notice and advised consumers its focus would be on its Windows Phone.

Then the Zune's product support team pulled a Mark Twain and said reports of its demise were greatly exaggerated, the Web site notice was pulled and consumers were advised there really is still a Zune.

Last month, the resurrected Zune ran out of lives. It was announced, officially and with finality, that the product was kaput.