Where Are We in the Tech Hype Cycle?

New technologies tend to follow different trajectories of hype, hope, and despair as they are discovered by different groups of people and finally adopted (or ignored) by consumers. Gartner actually goes ahead and charts this hype cycle for different technologies. Its latest hype cycle for 2008, shown above, is making the rounds. (It was released in July, but is just now reaching the upward trajectory in its own cycle). According to Gartner’s view of the world, the visibility of new technologies peaks early as initial excitement gains steam. This phase is followed by a “trough of disillusionment” in which inflated expectations hit reality. But as technologies prove themselves, their visibility begins to grow again at a more measured pace.

Of course, not all technologies go through these phases. Some just drop of the face of the Earth never to be heard from again; some wander around for years and don’t hit their hype cycle until later in life, and some build visibility at a steadier pace. But it is still a useful visual metaphor, especially for high-profile technologies that do exhibit these traits.

So where are we in the hype cycle exactly? Some technologies still moving towards the “peak of inflated expectations” include cloud computing, microblogging, and 3-D printing. Public Virtual Worlds, RFID, Web 2.0, and Wikis are troughing. And emerging into the “slope of enlightenment” are Tablet PCs (oh, yeah) and location-aware applications (thank you, iPhone).

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[MiamiWebDes...:]

Gartner Group Gaffs and Web 2.0 Techno-Hype

The renowned Gartner Group's latest Hype Cycle report places "Web 2.0" in a "Trough of Disillusionment":

tinyurl.com/6ycvs8

But for a few good chuckles, I suggest you Google the following and browse the first 20-30 listings:

failures Gartner Group
warnings Gartner Group
Gartner Group expects
Gartner Group predicts

As for "Web 2.0?, like so many tech articles posted since Tim O'Reilly (or was it Dale Dougherty?) first coined the term in 2004 (or was it 2005?), this one references "Web 2.0" as if it were something tangible--or at least a concept with clear, concise definition. It is not. In 2006, Web founder Sir Tim Berners-Lee sagely observed that "nobody knows what it means":

tinyurl.com/y6ewzy

In 2007, Michael Wesch put together this video that supposedly "explains what Web 2.0 really is about":

tinyurl.com/6pdz2q

It is a cool video. But the message is all about XML and how it can be used to separate form and content. There was no mention of CSS and XHTML, but no matter. I was writing XML parsers in the '90s, and XHTML/CSS web design pre-dates "Web 2.0" as well.

And now in 2008, the most honest thing we can say is that "Web 2.0" means whatever the techno-marketeer (ab)using it wants it to mean. Otherwise, why would intelligent people like Isaac O'Bannon still be writing articles asking "What is Web 2.0?":

tinyurl.com/5solok

And, why would McKinsey's just-released best-of-breed report entitled "Building the Web 2.0 Enterprise" ...

tinyurl.com/6sxls7

... include no attempt at defining the term other than to list the "Web 2.0 Tools" that comprise or enable it? And even there, the chief ingredient is identified only as "Web Services", adding more mystery to the mix as one ethereal term is offered up to explain another.

As originated in an Onstartups.com website design posting...

tinyurl.com/576sgs

... "Web 2.0" is like pornography: Nobody has defined it; you just have to know it when you see it.

Bruce Arnold, Web Design Miami Florida
www.PervasivePersuasio...

2008 Aug 19 10:38 AM

[brewer:]

Tablet PC went straight to obscurity, but I think it was the particular implementation that was very weak, not the idea in general.

2008 Aug 19 01:28 PM