New tech is released almost quarterly these days and lots of it doesn’t even make it to the mainstream market. Some of them appear and then fade into the background and some are just a small fad. Google Wave for example was massively hyped before its launch in early 2010, but does anyone that got an invitation use it anymore? For most of us the answer is no, but why is that and what went wrong?

A useful way of illustrating why some new tech innovation fade away after their hype is to look at Gartners hype cycle to see the general trajectory of new tech adaptation in the market. Gartner devides his hype cycle into 5 stages:

Gartner’s hype cycle stages

1. Technology Trigger: The point when tech is made public (e.g. via a keynote speech of Steve Jobs about new Apple gadgets) and early adopters are encouraged to test the technology
2. Peak of Inflated Expectations. A stage when the “bubble of hype” (v. benefits received) regarding use of the technology reaches its peak
3. Trough of Disillusionment. After the bubble bursts and people say, “I told you that was just a fad.”
4. Slope of Enlightenment. Is a period where the innovation tech becomes sufficiently mature, standardized and adopted and starts generating mainstream market results
5. Plateau of Productivity. When benefits begin to flatten out and technology needs to either be reengineered or a new technology is needed to grow market share

Gartners Tech Hype Cycle 2009

Gartners Technology Hype Cycle 2009

iPad and Android in Gadners Technology Hype Cycle explained

What’s hyped today

According to this Cloud Computing and E-book reader reached the peak of inflated expectation in 2009, which makes sense as in 2010 all major Tech giants, such as Google’s Cloud, Apple’s MobileMe and Microsoft’s Windows Azure OS have been heavily promoting their cloud computing services. Similarly the market for e-readers was flooded since the start of 2010 with gadgets such as Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s iPad along with numerous rumors about Android powered e-readers. It was a logical step from the smartphone craze that due to its limitations in size lend itself perfectly to innovation. The success of the mainstream launch of the iPad for example just show how Steve Jobs followers might be willing to skip the stage of Through of Disillusionment and get enlightened right from the get go.

This is partly to do with Apple’s approach to launching new products as well as their ability to build new innovations on core principles of previous success, such as the iPod, iTunes and the iPhone which are all incorporated into iPad, except for the ability to make voice calls, which could have cannibalised the iPhone 4 launch in June 1 month after.

What’s here to stay

Speech recognition was in the stage of Slope of Enlightenment in 2009 and has become a build in function into most smartphones in 2010. Long gone are the days were it was not worth our time trying as call Joe would get interpreted as play ‘hey joe’ by Jimi Hendrix. Voice recognition software technology has been sufficiently adapted to the market needs and is now functional. although still far from perfect if you have a noisy background.

What’s up and coming?

So let’s have a look at what hasn’t quite hit the Peak of Inflated Expectations yet, but is on the rise and hopefully available for us to test soon. Two tech innovations that stick out are Surface computing and augmented reality. As for surface computing, again the iPad is a step ahead as their multitouch web browsing experience is pretty close to being perfect and Google Goggles bring Android powered phone a step closer to augmented reality. Simply point your camera around your high street and get local information about shops and restaurants right onto your screen is pretty fascinating. This coupled with Google’s image search to get your information about what this painting in your bosses office might be worth certainly seems to be a worthwhile innovation for search.

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