At WATBlog, our primary aim is to cover everything Web Advertising and Technology. Initially, the three might seems mildly distinct, but the three are what I believe drive development, encourage enterprise and inspire innovation. I still remember the surprise that dawned on me as a child when I realized that all of television, all the TV shows, all the cartoons, everything that happened on that screen was only because someone had a product, and needed a medium to advertise it. That apart, over the last few years, we’ve covered social media, the internet space, the developments in telecom, and startups and a lot of it is from an Indian viewpoint. However, we’ve rarely covered Technology and development in technology. Though I’ve been writing for WATBlog only for a while, and have been a reader for not much longer, I’ve felt that while covering commercial developments in technology, we’ve either skipped some explanation of it or we’ve ignored certain technology that might make its mark on the future.
Gartner is an analyst/research house in the USA, and they introduced the concept of what they call a Hype Cycle. The hype cycle is a trend followed by consumers and emerging technologies. From early adoption, to hype, to disillusionment to productivity, the hype cycle is what Gartner uses to advice its clients on the best sectors and developing technologies to invest in. The hype cycle for 2009 was published a while ago.
Now, I hope to initiate a series of articles on the latest technologies. The focus of the articles will be manifold.
- From a tech/science perspective. Each article will review one technology and explain the concept behind it and the working (the tech know-how). The idea is to provide an insight to the way technology is developing.
- Some perspective on the developments in technology, how they’ve improved, the latest news/buzz on it, basically a commercial perspective.
- Finally, an attempt to figure out how it’d affect India.
Ideally, the explanation of the technology will be simple (with little or no technical pre-existing knowledge). The aim will also be on understanding Gartner’s evaluation of the technology and probably shed some light on why they think Cloud and Microblogging are hyped. The actual research papers cost a fortune, and hence our evaluation will be independent, with a hope of understanding their’s. Also, a lot of these are interlinked, hopefully I’ll be able to shed some light on how they could overlap in application and complement each other in development and marketing.
The idea is to still focus on technology that will affect Web, Advertising and Technology. Hence, I shall be skipping topics like Behavioral Economics, among others.
Following is a list from their hype cycle I shall cover.
- Video Search
- Quantum Computing
- Context Delivery Architecture
- 3-D Flat Panel Displays
- Augmented Reality
- Internet TV
- Wireless Power
- Cloud Computing
- E-book Readers
- Social Software Suites
- Microblogging
- Green IT
- Video Telepresence
- Online Video
- Public Virtual Worlds
- RFID
- Mobile Payments
- Social Network Analysis
- Web 2.0
- Tablet PC
- E-paper
- Wikis / Wikia coverage
- Location-aware applications
The list is tentative and in no-specific order. I was considering following the Hype Cycle graph and following the technologies in that order. That’s the plan at least.
I would appreciate feedback on the idea. Apart from being a fun thing for me to read about and understand, the objective is also to acquaint our readers with upcoming technology and how it could impact their lives. Are there other topics I should cover? Are some of the above listed topics not worth covering? Please let me know.
