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 /.

Re:Easy!

[stratjakt]

But what if you aren't Apple?

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

[sg3000]

It's more than marketing. If it were just marketing, we wouldn't have grocery stores any longer; we'd all be using that home delivery service that Whoopi Goldberg was plugging to pay $10 for a six pack of coke.

Marketing can make people aware of a new type of product or make people aware of a problem they didn't know they had before (this was really successful back in the early 1900s when razor companies convinced American women they had to shave their legs and armpits), but it's not the only problem.

It seems to me that what is successful (for the products they showed) is related to a simple, distinctive product that offers something tangible. The iPod can play music and store a lot more than Walkmans. You actually pay for it, so you know what you get. When you buy a song on ITMS, you buy it; not you have the right to listen to it until you stop paying your bill. This is why Apple's ITMS was more successful than the other record companies' earlier attempts.

They talked about satellite radio not being as popular. I think the problem is you have to buy the product (the head unit), plus get a subscription. Barriers of entry are high, and then its one more bill that you pay every month. With DVRs (which are cool, but didn't get adopted as fast as DVDs), many consumers aren't quite sure what they're getting because the category and pricing schemes aren't able to overcome the idea of just going to the store and buying a DVD. Aha! Tangible.

Because of subscriptions and other ways of extracting reoccurring sources of revenue from the consumer, it's the business model that drives product adoption just as much as marketing.

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

[oliverthered]

1: the dvd.... people were pissed off with tapes jaming and pops and hisses on vinal. They liked the compact medium and durability of cd. DVD was ripe for the picking, it had already been sold when they sold the CD.
For next gen (bluRay/holodisk) to take of there will either have to be a huge improvement in quality, drop in cost, or some other compelling reason to switch.
(how may music albums are sold on dvd?)

2:... Satalite radio, never heard of it, sounds crap, I have an Ipod with shite loads of music, I have internet radio piss off I'm not buying that crap.

3: Ipod £200, a bit expensive, I'm going to wait for the price to come down. Maybe I'll get a pda.

Top tip if you want to make a few bucks. Ipod x ICE (in car entertainment).

1 micro pc case (£40)
1 mothor board (£40)
1 100 gb hdd drive (£50)
1 amp or two (£80)
1 display, 1 wifi usb card. (unknown)

~£300, or about the same price as a crap incar multi change unit with mp3 support.

If it runs linux then...

You should be able to link up usb or bluetooth to you phone for hands free.

Link to you ipod, portable mp3 player, usb keyring etc..

Link to the house, or another car, or the internet with WiFi.

Add a usb CD drive if you like, inface add just about any usb device you can think of.

It's a killer because:

It's the same price as current munti changer systems.,

It's interoperable (try mixing and matching current ICE components).

Current systems in the market are crap.

Mp3 playes are just taking off.

Do it well, and no-one will have a standard radio or cd/tape player in the car in 5 years time.

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.

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.

Re:the routine

[halothane]

I second that. I don't have an online reference, but if any of you can get your hands on a textbook "Clinical Pharmacology" by DR Lawrence, you will find a similar graph plotting the popularity of any new drug that is introduced into clinical practice.

First, it is the panacea for every disease under the sun; then it becomes evil incarnate for all the side effects and adverse effects it causes. Finally, it finds its place in the spectrum of known drugs, with its own benefits and risks.

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...

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...]

Easy but expensive to shortcut

[AKAImBatman]

The "technology hype cycle" is fairly easy to shortcut if you have independent testers *use* the product instead of just releasing it to the market. For example, anyone who *used* the Audrey for any period of time could have told you that it would be a complete flop. It was underpowered, slow, and overall useless. OTOH, Apple made sure that people (especially Jobs himself) *used* the iPod before release. Changes were made based on that usage, and the product was better for it.

Of course, that's no guarantee of success. It's quite possible that the product will fail because people don't "get it". In that case you have to watch what your focus groups do. Do they sort of bumble with the thing, with no idea what they're doing? Would they actually keep using it if they weren't forced to? Do they make use of most of the features, or do they ignore them? Most of this can be found by quiet observation of the user with the device. Don't answer questions. Just let them figure it out.

If there's little that can be done about the complexity, then you're going to need a good advertising campaign. Manuals will help, but they only come *after* the purchase. It's much better to explain why they need the device before purchase so that they'll jump right in with the designed goals in mind.

Re:Future or Furniture?

[cecille]

Sometimes we call the grad students (and some undergrads) who hang around WAY too long the "furniture" because they last so long and they're such an integral part of everything. Could be like that.

...or not

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.

Re:Future or Furniture?

[farnz]

It's a British usage; anything that's "part of the furniture" is so accepted that you don't notice it specifically.

So, having a sofa isn't something special, and nor is being on the Internet. Owning an iPod is, thus the iPod is not part of the furniture.

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.

Blame the Press

[plasticmillion]

I find it ironic that Gartner came up with this concept (it's been around for years, incidentally), since analysts and journalists are the ones who propagate this system.

It goes something like this: some new technology starts to look like the next big thing. Journalists hype it to the moon since it gives them something "truly revolutionary" to talk about. As a result, expectations get all blown out of proportion.

Then when the technology inevitably fails to live up to the hype within some ridiculously short timeframe, they have yet another big story to promote: "Is XYZ a hopeless failure?". Two stories for the price of one!

The moral is not to believe what you read in the papers. Sure, there are plenty of revolutionary technologies emerging, but these things take much, much longer than the press would have us believe.

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"!

What _really_ matters?

[RsG]

Porn

No, seriously, new technology is frequently propelled forward by its capacity for smut. Show of hands: How many /.ers got broadband or upgraded their modems in order to meet more women named .jpeg or her lovely sisters .mpeg? As far as that goes it's an often overlooked fact that porno movies go back to the beginning of film. The "hype circle" is just another way of saying "lookit that, no nipple pixels!" :-)

(And yes I realized how it's ironic to ask for a show of hands WRT porn. At least I didn't ask you to show both hands.)

Re:iPod Hype Cycle

[mccalli]

...but mp3 playing and players were well entrenched before iPod showed up

Not so. They existed, certainly, but well-entrenched? Not really. And only one had anything like enough storage to hold more than a single album (the Nomad, which I seem to remember was first). And even then, the ones that had capacity had nowhere near the correct form factor.

I know all of this, because I'd been trying to justify getting an MP3 player for month, but couldn't bring myself to do it because I knew that whilst technologically pretty, they were functionaly useless. Then the iPod came out and I knew immediately I wanted one. Could easily fit in a pocket, and could hold a ton of music? Yep - the first of the players to be truley functional. I only had a Windows PC at the time and there was no way for them to talk. I bought an original 5Gig iPod the same day XPlay hit beta.

Oh, and I've since gone to OS X too, returning to Apple after a gap of about seven years. It's up for debate how much of the iPod's quality acted as a trojan horse there.

Cheers,
Ian

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 *TRUE* technology hype cycle

[LordOfYourPants]

-5 months: You "discover" a technology at a conference that no one seems to have picked up on.

-2 months: You read about it in the newspaper 3 months later. The article is done by a guy whose speciality is discussing nothing but gadgets.

0 months: The technology appears in stores in limited quantities, geeks foam at the mouth trying to acquire it. The girlfriends of geeks shake their head wondering why they would need it.

2 weeks: The geeks who can't find it in stores buy it on ebay for 3x the store cost. No girlfriends to shake their head at these guys.

1 year: Regular people begin buying the product.

1.5 years: Mainstream newspapers report on the popularity of the product.

2 years: Your girlfriend buys the product.

2.5 years: Your mother finally hears about the product.

3 years: Families begin buying the product. The product is finally mainstream.

5 years: The product begins appearing between the shaving razors and chocolate bars at the check-out counter.

7 years: The product/technology finally peters out and your grandmother goes around telling people that she knew it was a fad from the start (1 year ago, from her perspective).

8 years: Slashdot reports on the product.

Lol, you are joking or an idiot or ...

[SmallFurryCreature]

Lol, you are joking or an idiot or never seen either of the two techs you descibe.

The iPod got about 40gb of music and about half an hour playtime. The phones got 32mb and about 2-3 hours playtime.

iPod market will never be replaced by the phone market. Same reason the real hifi component market is not replaced by the boom-box market. iPod buyers will always want the extra quality that a dedicated product can give them. A gadget that tries to do everything will always end up doing all of them less.

Two different markets.

word of mouth

[spoonyfork]

1991: "Don't call, send me an email."
1992: "$10 for a CD? What a deal!"
1993: "$3,000 for a 486? What a deal!"
1994: "Check out this webpage."
1995: "I'll be out, call my cell."
1996: "I bought it all online."
1997: "The number's in my PalmPilot. What? No, it's better than the Newton."
1998: "MP3s on napster.com? No problem, I've got a cablemodem now."
1999: "Y2K? Yeah, I've got my bunker stocked."
2000: "Yeah, I finally got a DVD player."
2001: "Check out my wireless network. Yeah, all the way to the patio."
2002: "It costs more but this LCD monitor is the shiznite!"
2003: (unemployed)
2004: "Would you like fries with that?"