Thus far, they have about a 50% accuracy rate. Among the criteria the site uses in making its annual determinations are sharply declining sales and rising costs; companies sold or in bankruptcy; brands that have suffered major market-share losses; and hints dropped by the brand's parent company that it may be on the way out.
Some of their 2013 list-makers proved them right (Nook and Leap Wireless are out); others not so much (Martha Stewart Living and Road & Track still with us); while the jury's still out on still others (Volvo, LivingSocial, the WNBA basketball league, Olympus cameras).
The nominees are generally plumbed from a broad-brush of American industry, and the 2014 list is no exception: Retail's formerly hot Lululemon and Aeropostale are losing out to fashion-forward competitors; telecom giants Time Warner Cable and DirecTV are likely merger targets; one-time Internet sensations Zynga and Shutterfly are SO Web 1.0; chocolatier Russell Stover may be gobbled up by Hershey or a foreign confectioner, alongside Hillshire Brands (think Jimmy Dean sausages and Ballpark franks) having put itself on the block and cozying up to Tyson Foods; and the perennial runner-up: BlackBerry (formerly known as Research in Motion, or RIM), which appears to have exhausted its millennial nine lives.