A bit later ('98 or '99, I think) I worked at a content/community site for older folks. Intel gave us this odd speech-synth software/API bolted on to a low poly 3D face that could move its lips in vaguely realistic ways. There was a plugin needed to use it in a browser, and we were given money to figure out something useful enough to do with it that people would bother to install the plugin.

Pretty sure you can guess how well that worked. My suggestion, making the tacky 90's robot recite Cartman lines or otherwise swear in ridiculous ways, was... not exactly in alignment with the rest of our content strategy, you might say. And probably not what Intel had in mind. But I bet adoptions would have broken the two-digit barrier.