The WATTech series hopes to shed light on the developing technologies on tomorrow. Now, as mentioned in theIntroduction to WATTech that we published last week, I’ll more or less be following Gartner’s take on the whole thing. This article is about the Hype Cycle as such. Gartner is a research firm which specialises in technology research and analysis.

A hype cycle is a graphic representation of the maturity, adoption and business application of specific technologies. The Gartner Hype Cycle has been around since 1995, and one of their major victories was predicting the burst of the dot com bubble in 1999.

According to Gartner, every technology runs through five phases. They are :

1. “Technology Trigger” – The first phase of a Hype Cycle is the “technology trigger” or breakthrough, product launch or other event that generates significant press and interest. All emerging technologies go through this. From the initial PR madness of the launch, to the early adoption stage with a few people talking about it. Once the reviews start pouring in, people evaluate the technology and spread the word.
2. “Peak of Inflated Expectations” – In the next phase, a frenzy of publicity typically generates over-enthusiasm and unrealistic expectations. There may be some successful applications of a technology, but there are typically more failures. This is the “Hype Phase” where everyone expects the  technology to bloom and prosper with everything from new development to world peace being predicted from its application. The eventual descent of the technology is to the “Trough of Disillusionment” after it fails to meet expectations. According to Gartner, microblogging (with Twitter in focus) has crossed the Peak and is slowly sliding into the trough. This correlates with several recent articles mentioning how Twitter might have reached its saturation peak with more spammers entering the environment. Considering Twitter has just started making new changes to its interface (Project ReTweet) (Location focus), and has just got anew bout of funding, the pessimism is surprising.
3. “Trough of Disillusionment” : Technologies enter the “trough of disillusionment” because they fail to meet expectations and quickly become unfashionable. Consequently, thepress usually abandons the topic and the technology. As of now, Gartner states that RFID is at the bottom of the trough. The trough is probably the toughest for most technologies to emerge out of. Once the buzz has gone, people stop considering the technology’s potential. In 2008, both RFID and Corporate Blogging were at the trough, while in 2009, corporate blogging has moved up to the “Slope of Enlightenment”
4. “Slope of Enlightenment”: Although the press may have stopped covering the technology, some businesses continue through the “slope of enlightenment” and experiment to understand the benefits and practical application of the technology. This phase is when businesses slog it out despite the media coventry.  Web 2.0 according to Gartner is in this phase. In 2008, Web 2.0 was descending down to the trough.
5. “Plateau of Productivity” : A technology reaches the “plateau of productivity” as the benefits of it become widely demonstrated and accepted. The technology becomes increasingly stable and evolves in second and third generations. The final height of the plateau varies according to whether the technology is broadly applicable or benefits only a niche market.  The plateau is when the technology becomes accepted, develops a good market base and can now be used commercially and for furthering other technology. In 2009, Speech Recognition is touching the Plateau.

Gartner commercialises their expertise and knowledge about the Hype Cycle in their book “Mastering the Hype Cycle” which indicates their analysis of when a technology should be adopted, funded, or ventured into. Their research of course, costs a LOT.

Gartner also produces a priority matrix. Based on where the technology lies in the Hype Cycle, Gartner advises how much to venture into it and the risk / return offset.

As per 2009, cloud computing, e-book readers, scial software suites and microblogging are the most hyped technologies which will slowly descend and lose media focus.

There is some criticism of the Gartner Hype Cycle. For one thing, it seems mildly unbelievable that every technology should go through these phases necessarily. Also, since the concept has changed little through the year, the evaluation of technologies now with so much media attraction and criticism has increased. While this could mean better understanding, this could also propel more hype and inflated expectations.

WATTech will follow the Gartner Hype Cycle. While giving the scientific / concept know-how behind the technology, we will also focus a little on its history and see if the Gartner Cycle correlates.

Also, from an India perspective, a lot of technology comes late to India. Early adoption is also not as quick. So does that mean technologies follow the whole trough, and rise rigmarole even here. Since we certainly know that there is a lag in catching on to the trend, does this lag continue as the technology spirals downwards? Or do we learn from the failures in the West and smartly join the fray only when it’s productive?

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