Gartner Hype Cycle and Blogs

Andy has tapped into a large movement of “anti-weblogger ferver.” There are a lot of them out there, believe me. It’s just a natural cycle to go through. Weblogs have gotten a lot of hype. Now it’s time for the anti-hype cycle to happen. No biggie. I’ll keep weblogging whether it’s popular or not.

[via The Scobleizer Weblog]

Way back in the first days of this blog, I posted about Gartner’s Hype Cycle. I still think it’s a very good summary of how most new technologies experience a roller coaster effect:

We are almost certainly in the trough of disillusionment when it comes to blogs. Lots of critical comments, much confusion over their “true” benefits, etc. Yet hundreds of thousands of people continue to use their weblog as a way of cataloging their thought. And companies are starting to explore how they might use weblogs for other purposes.

My prediction: we will emerge from this trough into the “slope of enlightenment” during which it will become obvious that personal weblogs can be tremendous tools for capturing ad hoc knowledge and archiving it for future use. Furthermore, businesses will figure out that blogs can serve as both a content management system as well as an internal knowledge sharing platform – a much different use from the personal application, but a critical one for the business world to adopt weblogs with enthusiasm.

Finally, we’ll move into the plateau, which will mean that blogs are an established piece of our computing environment. I give us 24 months to get to that point.