As we have said before in this blog, the phrase ‘next big thing’ is a giveaway to Hype Cycle watchers. When you see this buzz-phrase in a few media articles, it’s a good indicator of a new cycle forming or in play. It gets used many times – around the technology trigger, the peak and again sometimes as something moves onto the slope of enlightenment. That happens as different categories of news media introduce it to different audiences. For example specialised technical, professional and trade journals will tend to use the phrase earliest – pre-peak. More mainstream trade press and the general press either side of the peak. As the technology makes a splash market by market, localised press ( in all categories ) will echo it. This is another heuristic for hype cycle builders and trackers of course – by no means perfect.
Anyway, roughly in the order I just described – sharpen your pencils and start sketching or updating your cycles for:
(yes – those last two still news to many outside tech as the cycle progresses towards mainstream)