The Technology Hype Cycle

jira writes "What does it take for a new gadget to be succesfull on the market? Which technologies will become part of everyday life in the future? BBC investigates the Techology Hype Cycle."

Comments

Easy!

[pedestrian crossing]

Just get a "review" posted on /.

90% marketing

[Megaweapon]

The usefulness of a gadget is irrelavent as long as the public buys them. Some tennis shoes are still over $100, right?

Re:90% marketing

[AKAImBatman]

The usefulness of a gadget is irrelavent as long as the public buys them.

Keep in mind that you'll only be selling them up until your competitor makes a more useful version. Anyone remember that the Rio player used to be king before the iPod came along?

Make it useful. Your pocketbook will thank you in the long term.

Re:90% marketing

[gl4ss]

well, make it desirable.

making it useful is just one way to make a product desirable, if you make it hip and cool and religiously(fashion can be one) compatible.

that's how you get people to buy a pair of tennis shoes for 1000$+.

Re:90% marketing

[AKAImBatman]

The iPod has fewer features, thus it's easier to use, thus it's more useful, thus more people buy it. More features == better is a logical fallacy.

Re:90% marketing

[hackstraw]

The 90% marketing thing doesn't seem to have anything to do with the body of the post, but I agree with the post and not the subject.

The post implies that culture of the market depends on the "hype" of the product. And I agree with this. Yes, I assume there are tennis shoes that go for $100 or so. Currently, I am wearing a pair of sandles that I found at a music festival after I lost my flipflops in the mud :) However, I own an HDTV that I paid over $1,500 for. I would guess a younger, more jock type of person would pay $100 for the tennis shoes ($5 for the shoes and sweatshop labor for the shoe, and $95 to the thug athlete who's name is on the shoe). However, a geek like me is paying $1,500 for a TV that could be purchased for $100 or so (about 700 for the TV, and a good percentage of the money going to pay for engineers, etc like me for the TV).

My point being that culture determines the maket, this culture can be influenced by marketing via ads and whatnot, but take another example -- cell phones.

Here in the US, we can't figure out why there are phones with cameras, text messaging, etc. Most everyone I know has a cell phone. I can't think of any of them that have a camera phone. The only time I've seen or heard of anyone get text messages here is when a friends phone got spambombed with porn text messages until her phone's memory was full.

I saw on TV where Avril Lavine was doing a tour in Japan, and _everyone_ had a cellphone with a camera in it and they were all taking pictures of the girl with their phones up in the air as far as their arm would reach. I understand that in Japan text messages are used for things other than porn spambombs.

Marketing has to preach to the choir. I don't think that marketing has convinced that senor citizens here in the US "need" a 4x4 suv to drive 25mph to church and to visit their grandkids, I think its more culture.

Re:90% marketing

[iantri]

However, a geek like me is paying $1,500 for a TV that could be purchased for $100 or so (about 700 for the TV, and a good percentage of the money going to pay for engineers, etc like me for the TV

That's a bit different, isn't it? There are clear, measurable tangible benefits between an HDTV and a regular set. I think a better analogy would be to buy a $4,000 Sony HDTV set instead of a $1,500 JVC HDTV set because Sony is 'better'.

Patents

[essreenim]

Which technologies will become part of everyday life in the future?
'Which patents will prevent certain technology (and as a result promote others) and become part of everyday life in the future.

the routine

[AlexTheBeast]

The hype cycle isn't just for electronics. Think about IPOs.

Here's the referenced chart...
hype chart

Here's the yahoo 5 year IPO chart...
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=YHOO&t=5y&l=on&z=m &q=l&c=

Same pathway...

The is the pathway of ANYTHING new being introduced into the world. First, it's sexy and popular, then it's over done, and then it either levels off or dies.

Re:the routine

[dave420]

Even candy bars... start eating, and they taste great! Keep eating, and you get sick. Then, the attraction decreases rapidly, until you've not eaten them so much that they start to be tasty again, but you don't eat so many so you don't get ill.

ok, maybe I think about candy too much.

Before something is hyped...

[thrill12]

it must be researched, developed, tested, and proven. Proven technology like MP3 could never have evolved if Fraunhofer wasn't so wise to invent and release the technology. From thereon, it went it's own way (more or less) and evolved into what MP3 is now : mainstream and accepted.
Before all those people leap into the "why does this work and why this not" they should start at the bottom: research and development. With those two magic words, we are likely to see a whole lot of hypes more. Without it, we can just wait on the next company that goes bankrupt because noone would buy it's proven, but old, products...

Get teens to accept it

[MacFury]

1. Get pop stars to wear it or use it...

2. Roll around in your new found wealth

*sigh*

In a nutshell

[CodeMaster]

1. Get a new technology that has not matured yet.
2. Apply it to a maturing retail area (see iTunes and the music market).
3. Packaging and usability is king if you want to get the mass audience (and no - slashdot readers are NOT the mass audience!)
4. Profit!

(5. Putting the little apple logo on it usually helps jump a few steps in the process...)

Get your free iPod![it really works! - my buddy got his after I signed up, I have just 2 more referrals to go...]

It's not just technology

[Weaselmancer]

From the article:

"Something new would happen, there would be tremendous excitement, followed by disillusionment."

Sounds like the entire course of human history to me.

Caw!

[Anonymous Coward]

It also helps to have a foot in the door... companies that already have a good relationship with a big box store like Wal-Mart would be more likely to swing deals. For example, they could get priority placement in Wal-Mart stores by the cash as "impulse buy" items. Of course it depends on the type of product, but existing ties to industry make it difficult for the new guy to get into the game.

Why do you think the iPod is the most popular and well-known HD MP3 player around? Big advertising budget and good store placement. It may not be the best thing (I contest that my iRiver iHP-120 is far superior), but it's the "gadget to get" for people who don't care to look into how other items stack up.

Shiny parts...

[cplusplus]

Lots and lots of shiny pieces. Or smooth pieces. Shiny + smooth = success.
I think there's some truth to that. If Gadget A catches your eye and is aesthetically pleasing it will probably sell better than an uglier but more functional Gadget B.
Apple tends to blend form and functionality rather well.

So what's after the "Plateau of Productivity"?

[Maestro4k]

I noticed the chart ends at the "Plateau of Productivity" but that isn't where all technology ends. Just look at things such as phonographs (you can barely find them anymore). On a more pertinent note the Internet seems to be going a bit downhill from that plateau thanks to spam, popup ads, malware, virus, worms, etc.

So while it's an interesting article I don't think they've accounted for everything or, more likely, they don't want to talk about the next step which is probably a slow (or fast) death for technology which is ursurped by the next new thing. Also while the idea seems to be this "Hype Cycle" can help predict the path of a technology the article itself throws cold water on that idea. They readily admit the iPod threw off all their predictions for the Mp3 player market (now called simple digital music players). The hype cycle seems more of a hindsight tool than a forward looking predictor.

Re: The technology hype cycle

[manavendra]

There was not an absolute iota of information in that article that I could make use of, or carry over with me. It smacks of absolute useless-ness, like a number of other articles

1. A graph with different tehnologies/device listed against the time it took for them to "mature", with funny names given to each trough and crest of popularity, does not make an insightful report.

2. There has been no mention of whose definiton of "product maturity" has been used. It is a term widely open for interpretation

3. It is hilarious to compare the effectiveness, acceptability and market penetration of such varied products as DVD players and PDAs, and so on. There are host of factors that come into play, least of which is the sense of an inane need within the target customer segment.

I bet that article concludes something. Though I certainly wish it was something more focused than a wannabe "we will have more power in our hands in the future"!

Where's cell phones in that cycle?

[objekt]

And when some company comes out with the cell phone that doubles as an mp3 player (downloads songs as easily as ringtones), bye-bye iPod. Why carry two gadgets when one will do, and doesn't require a computer?

Re:Apple knows...

[thinkzinc]

I agree. They just made the mp3 player more stylish and inproved the interface. This was important but they were certanly not the first company to make an mp3 player. In time the copycats will win the war by underpricing Apple.

Segway?

[MojoRilla]

Sometimes, according to Ms Behrens, a technology can be so hyped it may never meet expectations.

It seems like the Segway fits here. Vast hype, vast expectations, little impact two and a half years after introduction.

The 'Lead In'

[Alpha_Traveller]

The technology hype life cycle has essentially been pioneered by Microsoft.

1. Announce a technology "idea", that someone else pioneered, that's nowhere near complete in terms of development.
2. Develop it for months, maybe years, producing a lull in the market.
3. Finally release it, but in Beta.
4. Finally complete the beta, making the thing gold while it should still be nothing more than a beta.
5. Start "round 2" of producing a product that should still be in beta, and call it version 2.
6. Announce version 2, three months after you decide what the feature set will be, and start working on it.
7. continue the cycle.