Comments on: Social-media-phobes note, even Email was ‘over hyped’ once

By: Mark Raskino

Mark Raskino — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:19:17 +0000

Anthony – I agree. In the book we list hype cycle variants including the ‘high flyer’, where the eventual value expectations level of the plateau is higher than the initial hype peak. Web search might be another example.

By: Anthony Bradley

Anthony Bradley — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:14:19 +0000

I might argue that is was under hyped considering its incredible penetration, over use, and culturally addictive characteristics.

By: Mark Raskino

Mark Raskino — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 18:44:50 +0000

Timo – thanks for your comment. What examples do you have in mind?
There certainly are some complete failures, but fewer than people think. Most major technologies that get any serious hype exposure just take a lot longer to come good than people expect (sometimes many years) Things can spend quite a long time in the trough.
That’s really a key management value insight of the Hype Cycle – to help people in the adopting (buying and applying) organisations work out the *real* time-frame.
For example – PDAs with handwriting recognition came (1992) and went (1995) in the form of the Apple Newton. They then spent 3 years in the trough until the arrival of the Palm Pilot in 1998.
We have a particular symbol (a crossed circle) we use in our published cycles. It’s used if the Gartner analyst predicts the technology will ‘fall off’ and won’t get to the plateau of productivity. It’s surprising how infrequently is it used.

By: Timo Elliott

Timo Elliott — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 18:11:40 +0000

To be fair, there are also a plethora of over-hyped technologies that didn’t make it… (although social media is not one of them)