Modo (stylized in all lowercase) was a wireless device developed by Scout Electromedia, Utilizing pager networks, the device was designed to provide city-specific "lifestyle" content such as restaurant & bar reviews, movie listings, in addition to original curated content by Scout's developers. Officially announced on August 28th, 2000, targeting a "young hipster" urban demographic and a reported $20 million spent on marketing, the Modo was released on September 2000 in two US cities,

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and

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, with plans to roll out in other major urban areas such as

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and

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

. After not receiving additional funding and the firing of one of its chief executives, Geoff Pitfield. Scout Electromedia was liquidated and the Modo, along with its wireless service, was discontinued on October 2000, just one month after its release and one day before its Los Angeles launch. It's mentioned as one of the most notorious

dot-com bubble The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Comp ...

failed ventures.

History

After the company was funded, one of its venture backers, Flatiron, backed a similar company, Vindigo, which aimed to bring a broader range of information to the Palm Pilot platform. Because of Scout's focus on delivering mobile information to a young design-conscious audience that had no interest in using a traditional PDA, Vindigo was considered by the backers to be a complementary product offering. Scout Electromedia received an estimated 40 million to develop and market the Modo. The industrial design was done by

IDEO IDEO () is a design and consulting firm with offices in the U.S., England, Germany, Japan, and China. It was founded in Palo Alto, California, in 1991. The company's 700 staff uses a design thinking approach to design products, services, environ ...

(which took an investment in the startup), while the device software was based on Pixo's operating system (the OS that later powered the Apple

iPod The iPod is a discontinued series of portable media players and multi-purpose mobile devices designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The first version was released on October 23, 2001, about months after the Macintosh version of iTunes ...

). All of the electrical engineering, wireless and system development were done in-house by the company. The Modo was advertised heavily in its target markets of Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and San Francisco, and was sold online via its website and in retailers such as

DKNY DKNY is a New York City–based fashion house for men and women, founded in 1984 by Donna Karan. History Karan worked for 15 years at Anne Klein, including 10 as its head designer. In 1984 Karan and her late husband Stephan Weiss were offered t ...

and

Virgin Megastores Virgin Megastores is an international entertainment retailing chain, founded in early 1976 by Richard Branson as a record shop on London's Oxford Street. In 1979 the company opened their first Megastore at the end of Oxford Street and Tottenha ...

. The product was launched in the late summer of 2000 and made it to two of the four planned cities, but only shipped for one day in San Francisco. While the stock sold out, reviews of the device were mixed, while praising the device design and concept, criticisms arose due to its one-way service, its limited city availability and comparisons to competitors Vindigo and

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. On October 20, 2000, Geoff Pitfield, Scout Electromedia's CEO was fired, and on October 24, 2000 the company was shut down, stopping all developments and service on the Modo. Over time, it came out that the company's venture backers had left the company to die as many of them experienced their own financial problems due to the dot-com bubble (notably

Idealab Idealab (formerly known as idealab!) is a startup studio based in Pasadena, California, U.S.A. History Idealab was founded by Bill T. Gross (not to be confused with the founder of PIMCO, Bill H. Gross) in March 1996. Prior to Idealab, Gross fou ...

, Flatiron, and

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References

External links

Idealab's Bill Gross discussing Scout in BusinessWeekModo preview video by Scout Electromedia (2000)
on

Vimeo Vimeo, Inc. () is an American video hosting, sharing, and services platform provider headquartered in New York City. Vimeo focuses on the delivery of high-definition video across a range of devices. Vimeo's business model is through software a ...

IDEO Case Study for Scout Electromedia
{{Dot-com Bubble Pagers

History

See also

References

External links