This image of the “Hype Cycle” for consumer devices in 2014 from Gartner is from a presentation on the prospects and status of various kinds of technology. Credit: Gartner, Inc.
This week's Digital Savant column was a little bit of a departure, a piece not about the Apple Watch necessarily, but about how hype for new tech products works. The column ran in Tuesday's print edition of the American-Statesman and you can find it at MyStatesman.com.
It turns out there is a very reliable way of tracking the stages of hype for a particular kind of technology called the Hype Cycle Methodology. The column goes into how that works and some other thoughts from two sources who’ve been tracking tech trends for more than 20 years each. (Hey, that’s about how long I’ve been doing it!)
Here’s an excerpt from the column
Jackie Fenn, a vice president and fellow at the research firm Gartner, created in 1995 the Hype Cycle Methodology. "It was really an observation we were seeing with technology," Fenn said. "We'd see a lot of enthusiasm and overexpectation — and then a trough of disillusionment when people realize that these things are harder than we thought they'd be.
"There's a backlash until somebody gets it right, often Apple, and then mass adoption," Fenn said. In her methodology, Fenn calls that mainstream acceptance "The Plateau of Productivity." Typically, the whole cycle is triggered by a new innovation in, say, engineering or software that makes something new possible.
The Hype Cycle has proven durable. It weathered the accelerated late-'90s/early-2000s dot-com boom and bust and has been reliable through the rise of mobile technology, social media and, now, the cycle we're in with wearable technology, such as fitness trackers and the Apple Watch.
You can read the rest of the column here and let me know what you think in the comments!
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