The hype cycle is a branded graphical presentation developed and used by the American research, advisory and information technology firm Gartner, for representing the maturity, adoption and social application of specific technologies. The hype cycle provides a graphical and conceptual presentation of the maturity of emerging technologies through five phases.
An example of a hype cycle is found in Amara's law[2] which states that
We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.[4]
Each hype cycle drills down into the five key phases of a technology's life cycle.
| No. | Phase | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Technology Trigger | A potential technology breakthrough kicks things off. Early proof-of-concept stories and media interest trigger significant publicity. Often no usable products exist and commercial viability is unproven. |
| 2 | Peak of Inflated Expectations | Early publicity produces a number of success stories—often accompanied by scores of failures. Some companies take action; most don't. |
| 3 | Trough of Disillusionment | Interest wanes as experiments and implementations fail to deliver. Producers of the technology shake out or fail. Investment continues only if the surviving providers improve their products to the satisfaction of early adopters. |
| 4 | Slope of Enlightenment | More instances of how the technology can benefit the enterprise start to crystallize and become more widely understood. Second- and third-generation products appear from technology providers. More enterprises fund pilots; conservative companies remain cautious. |
| 5 | Plateau of Productivity | Mainstream adoption starts to take off. Criteria for assessing provider viability are more clearly defined. The technology's broad market applicability and relevance are clearly paying off. If the technology has more than a niche market then it will continue to grow.[5] |
The term "hype cycle" and each of the associated phases are now used more broadly in the marketing of new technologies.
Hype (in the more general media sense of the term "hype"citation needed]) surrounding new media technologies and their popularization, along with the development of the Internet, is a common characteristic. But following shortly after the period of 'inflated expectations', as per the diagram above, the new media technologies quickly fall into a period of disenchantment, which is the end of the primary, and strongest, phase of hype.
Many analyses of the Internet in the 1990s featured large amounts of hype,[6] However, such hype and the negative and positive responses toward it have given way to research that looks empirically at new media and its impact.
A longer-term historical perspective on such cycles can be found in the research of the economist Carlota Perez.[citation needed] D R Laurence in clinical pharmacology described a similar process in drug development in the seventies.[citation needed]
There have been numerous criticisms An analysis of Gartner Hype Cycles since 2000[13] shows that few technologies actually travel through an identifiable hype cycle, and that in practice most of the important technologies adopted since 2000 were not identified early in their adoption cycles.