Hyperbolic curves
Fair play to Gartner for presenting a different way of looking at the development of the most hyped technology trends. It produces an annual look at the most hyped technology trends called the Hype Cycle, and puts them all into a great big chart, which illustrates the phases of hype a trend goes through before mainstream adoption.
"The Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies features technologies that are the focus of attention in the IT industry because of particularly high levels of hype, or those that may not be broadly acknowledged but which we believe have the potential for significant impact," said Jackie Fenn, VP and Gartner Fellow.
"High-impact technologies at the Peak of Inflated Expectations during 2010 include private cloud computing, augmented reality, media tablets (such as the iPad), wireless power, 3D flat-panel TVs and displays, and activity streams, while cloud computing and cloud/Web platforms have tipped over the peak and will soon experience disillusionment among enterprise users."
Among the key themes highlighted by Gartner in this report are: user interaction, augmented reality, data-driven decisions, and the maturing of the cloud. It stuck a bunch of them into the graphic below, to illustrate that inevitably, after a peak of hype, there is a trough of disappointment before the final level of demand for a technology is established. It is, of course, a crude overview, but thought-provoking nonetheless.
