Hype cycle
The hype cycle shows which phases of public attention a new technology goes through when it is introduced. The concept of the hype cycle was coined by Gartner consultant Jackie Fenn and is now used by technology consultants to evaluate the introduction of new technologies.
According to Fenn, it is represented in a diagram : the attention (expectations) for the new technology is plotted on the Y-axis, and the time since it was announced on the X-axis. The curve rises explosively at the beginning, and then drops just as sharply after a maximum. After an intermediate minimum, the curve rises again to a higher level of steadiness. Mathematically, it is simply a matter of the decay after a jump excitation in the form of a strongly exponentially damped oscillation with an approach to an equilibrium position that is one jump higher than at the beginning of the oscillation.
An example of a hype cycle can be found in Amara's Law , which was coined by Roy Amara . It says: "We tend to overestimate the short-term impact of a technology and underestimate the long-term impact."
The simple hype cycle is divided into five sections according to this definition:
- Technological trigger
- The first phase is the technological trigger or breakthrough, the start of the project or any other event that arouses considerable interest from the specialist audience. Free riders rise to the new topic.
- Peak of exaggerated expectations
- In the next phase, the reports rush and often generate excessive enthusiasm and unrealistic expectations . There may be successful applications of the new technology, but most of them struggle with teething problems.
- Valley of Disappointments
- Technologies arrive in the valley of disappointments because they cannot meet all expectations and are quickly out of date. As a consequence, reporting is ebbing.
- Path of enlightenment
- Although the coverage of the technology has decreased dramatically, realistic assessments lead back on the path of enlightenment . There is an understanding of the advantages, the practical implementation, but also the limits of the new technology.
- Productivity plateau
- A technology reaches a productivity plateau when its benefits are widely recognized and accepted. The technology is getting more solid and evolving in the second or third generation. The final height of this plateau depends heavily on whether the technology is adopted in mass or niche markets .
A famous example is the internet itself: initially misunderstood, then explosively overestimated ( dot-com bubble ) and now on a steadily rising path. Although the inventor Jackie Fenn was able to use this curve to predict the dotcom crash half a year earlier in 1999, she was completely wrong in 1995 with her assessment that the “information superhighway”, now known as the Internet, was already in decline. Another example is the AI winter , when expectations and investments in artificial intelligence fell sharply.
See also
- Kondratiev cycle
- Elliott Wave Theory (Grand Supercycle)
Web links
- spiegel.de: The hype cycles of new technologies (2006)
- Gartner's hype cycle: Description of the sections of a hype cycle
Individual evidence
- ^ Fenn, Jackie: The Microsoft system software hype cycle strikes again Gartner Group. July (1995).
- ^ Gartner Inc .: Gartner Hype Cycle, Interpreting technology hype. In: Gartner. Gartner Inc., accessed January 10, 2020 .