Tricky Dick, Spamazon, and 10 Other Media Failures of 2011

Now that just about everyone else is done publishing their annual feel-good "Best Of" lists, it's time for Dead Tree Edition to remind us what a crappy year we just stumbled through.  Here’s a look back at some of the media world’s unsung losers and overlooked failures of 2011:

Spamazon: Amazon, once known for its uncanny ability to send emails promoting just the right products to the right person (See An Amazon Approach to Selling Magazine Subscriptions), decided to enter the deal-of-the-day business. But it turns out the big web retailer is better at algorithms than maps: Several readers report being deluged with irrelevant offers, including ones for car washes, hair salons, and the like that are more than two hours from where they live. By the time Amazon realizes the damage it has done, I’ll bet millions of us customers will have relegated its missives to our spam folders.

Georgia: Forbes recently announced the launch of its 20th “local language edition”, Forbes Georgia. Yat's raht, them good ol’ boys in Jawjuh fahnly had to abandon WDCHYDIUN (We Don't Care How You Do It Up North) as a business strategy and realized they need someone to explain the ways of Wall Street and other Yankee business practices to them in their own language. (What? There’s a country called Georgia? Sheee-it, I thought Georgia rejoined the Union just a few years after the War Against Northern Aggression.)