Brian Zhang Larsen’s Blog

I fell over this a while ago. I don’t want to mention you know what, but I think there is some other interesting predictions and estimates on this hype cycle.

I initially found this version of Gartner’s hype cycle in an entry from Dion Hinchcliffe, and I asked him who made it. Apparently he repurposed this from a Marketing chart, and he encouraged me to blog about it… So here I am.
I especially like the placements of “RSS” and “word of mouth”. I am convinced that “word of mouth” has disappointed a lot now as a marketing stunt, and did not live up to the hype it had received. Though I think that currently the term viral marketing will be hyped up, and then we just start over again with another word for roughly the same thing. Word of mouth can indeed be a very powerful tool and have helped a lot of emerging technologies and websites to gain momentum and reach a critical mass. But as a sole marketing strategy I believe it can turn to be very unreliable. But maybe it will all go better for viral marketing!!!
I also agree on the placement of RSS. Even though it has existed a long time now, it is still being hyped as “The truth” by many. There is so many ideas for its usage and, and I thinks one of its powers is that it is relatively (to what?!) simple to make and use. It has soon to disprove some of the hyped usages, and reach a more realistically position. Personally I have a hard time seeing what the major problems and disappointments should be, but then again I only use it at a moderate level, and don’t expect it to do much more for me that it does now. My guess is that RSS will reach the plateau of productivity by the time Microsoft Launches Vista. While they are the incumbent and thereby naturally have a large amount of inertia, we still await them to implement and use RSS.

A couple of weeks ago I was at the danish technological institute to see a demonstration on RFID and to hear about the current state, problems and obstacles with the technology. Peter Skovborg showed us Gartner’s hype cycle for different emerging technologies, mainly to show us where RFID was at the moment. The model shows at which stage a technology currently is in, and essentially: a technology gets overhyped in the beginning, it starts to disappoint because they fail to meet expectations and in the end they reach the plateau of productivity. Here the technology becomes widely adopted and accepted. On the model I noticed several other interesting technologies that to some people is known as web 2.0. buzzzz buzzz buuuuuzzzzzzz….

On the model it seems that wikis and corporate blogging currently is on the “Trough of Disillusionment”. This means that the hype is on its way down, and that the technologies ( concepts is maybe a better words) now has disappointed in some way and now waits to get it realistic benefits revealed so it can become widely accepted. I think the model makes a very realistic picture of these concepts, and most of all i am glad to see that the hype is over… although though i am not quite sure about that. And i would love to see the term AJAX up there, because it seems to be what the main hype is all about at the moment.
I have a feeling that the term/buzz about the term web2.0 is mainly to attract venture capitalists, and to create another famous bubble. Jeffrey Zeldman has on that note a very amusing article about the hype. The term is still very intangible and has many different definitions, but to my surprise I found that some people have already mapped several news versions of the web. According to Alex Krupp the different versions of the web differs by the following:

Web 1.0 is about allowing individuals to create and share ideas
Web 2.0 is about allowing groups to create and share ideas
Web 3.0 is about allowing societies to create and share ideas
Web 4.0 is the singularity

His article is somewhat paranoid about the trust aspect, which the group paradigm is build up around, but has some good points. But when it comes to the new versions his arguments and illustrations fall flat. Or maybe it is just me that doesn’t get them.