The Hype Cycle: “I’d Like to Phone a Friend”

Anyone working (or investing) in technology would be wise to maintain their friendships beyond the echo chamber — that welcoming false market which demands tomorrow’s today, and can all too easily skew any perspective of the mainstream.  The same is true of Hollywood and Washington, of course, but that’s another topic altogether.

A few weeks ago, Union Square’s Brad Burnham noted that “some of the giddy enthusiasm” surrounding the web has waned lately.  Along the coastlines, perhaps — there hasn’t been much “hypesteria” lately, outside of X buying Y and, of course, today’s Chrome launch — but I’ve had many conversations with people who are just now catching on to 2006, at best.

The next generation of services will need to have an impact on the real world and the real economy, not just an attention economy driven by self expression and discovery online. These new services will also need to reach real people, many of who use few if any web services today.
— Brad Burnham

So where are we, then?  Or, rather, where is everyone else?  According to a July 2008 study by Gartner Research, we still have a long way to go before today’s hype gains even a semblance of meaningful mainstream adoption…

I suppose we all just need a bit of patience, and (since I’m not especially patient) a renewed focus on practical innovation that employs technology to serve the “real world”, rather than always looking at it the other way around.

[via TechCrunch]