Perhaps you’ve been there.

Willing to do anything to appease a grumpy toddler, you pass over your handheld digital camera and let the tyke give it a try. After all, more often then not, the device was a Flip, a palm-sized, user-friendly, low-cost alternative to the sooo-2000 mommy cam. The virtually indestructible little gem of digital technology had the magic to restore calm in a matter of seconds without a frame of video lost in the process.

But almost as quickly as it seemed to rise, Flip has been sunk, a casualty of Cisco’s inability to keep a winner in the winner’s circle.

In a release on its website, the financially embattled Cisco said it will “exit aspects of its consumer businesses,” closing down its Flip operation and weaning lovers of the device off it with a “transition plan.”

And just like that, the nation’s best-selling camcorder finds itself in a digital graveyard somewhere between MySpace and my old electric blue pager. (more…)