Characterising the hype and over-enthusiasm surrounding new technology, Hype Cycles aim to graphically display the adoption, maturity and social application of emerging trends and concepts.

Why pay attention?

Tracking a path from initial trigger through expectations, disillusionment, enlightenment into increasingly stable productivity, Hype Cycles follow the path technology takes through the adoption process, as defined below.

Vital for not only brands but major corporations, media outlets and even government organisations, the key advantage of this technique for brands is to make predictions about which services and products to invest in and develop for future productivity.

Hype Cycle’s yearly reports since 1995 shed a very revealing light on how fast technology has evolved. Just look at the ‘peak of inflated expectations’ for 1995 – ‘The Information Superhighway’ – our humble friend The Internet.

In 1995 on the up towards the mainstream was speech recognition, which interestingly, is at the same position five years later in 2001. Moving over onto the cusp of mainstream in 2011 with the introduction of Siri for the iPhone 4GS and Android, this illustrates the time taken for technology to mature to be accepted by the wider audience and the importance of understanding the whereabouts of any given technology on Hype Cycle before investing.

Confirmation – Hype Cycle 2011:

Gartner's Hype Cycle for emerging technology in 2011

E-books and e-readers were predicted to hit the mainstream in 2011, after 2010’s cycle saw them declining into a trough. After initial hype of a paperless future, and prior to iPad and Kindle tablet release, the thought of reading books on a digital device was sacrilegious to book lovers the world over. Now sales of e-books are eclipsing their physical counterparts, slotting into increasingly digital lifestyle; intelligence confirmed.

Predictions that QR codes, mobile application stores and biometric authentication methods will become socially accepted into the mainstream in 2011 all echo true. This year’s Hype Cycle predicts cloud platforms, hosted virtual desktops, virtual worlds and consumerisation as key areas of interest currently on their way up towards ‘enlightenment’.

Importance of Research:

One of the cardinal sins of marketing – and the one made most often – is failing to properly understand new technology and how it fits the consumer or the objectives and marketing goals of any advertising campaign. This handy Priority Matrix indicates the time-frame for key investment opportunities:

What level of benefit can an enterprise gain from a technology?

Gartner’s report highlights the fundamental need for constant monitoring of emerging technologies. The need for in-depth research and proactive development for brands, as they compete in an increasingly competitive and clustered market-place is directly linked to brand success.

Looking forward:

Knowing where your brand is in relation to competitors and where the market is headed is vital. Only with this information is your brand is best equipped to become leaders in any given sector and optimise real success in generating real value and revenue.

Whilst critics suggest the system is not scientific enough and does not suggest new technology trends, merely indicating those already in existence, as a research tool it’s highly beneficial to have in your armoury. Keeping a beady eye on the 2011 cycle and a finger on the technological pulse, brands could do a lot worse than to mug up on the key trends emerging from this year’s cycle.

The full breakdown of reports by industry sector can be found over at Gartner.

I attended talks from Facebook, Attensity Europe, the Press Association and the Real Story Group all of which considered the future of social media. A lot of focus was devoted to looking at how businesses should incorporate social elements into their web offerings and how they can engage with their customers to get the greatest response.

One of the most memorable messages came from the Facebook seminar, during which the world of business was encouraged to be more “social by design” (by finding ways to motivate consumers to engage with brands through interactive methods). Developments such as the increasing presence of the ‘like’ button (which encourages people to share things with their friends) and sponsored links on Facebook are both already having a massive effect on the way people interact with brands. This is driving businesses to increasingly incorporate social elements into their online properties. This is no surprise though – as the talk revealed, for every 50,000 fans a brand has, it has the potential reach of 6 million further friends and fans.

With 60% of shoppers now searching online beyond traditional brand websites before buying products, it’s clear that consumers today are becoming increasingly savvy shoppers, careful to do their research before they commit to making the final purchase.

The fact that 75% of web users now use social media tools and 80% of company revenues are from loyal customers, confirms that social media strategies need to be incorporated in business – otherwise you risk missing out on a massive potential reach. A study by Nielson revealed that people are four-times more likely to purchase a brand that their friends have “liked” on Facebook.

Overall, my day at Internet World confirmed what I (and everyone else!) already suspects… social media is growing, becoming increasingly influential, and the world of business needs to embrace it and reap the benefits!

I’ve just stumbled across a really interesting article on the BBC News Technology site, which looks at how mobile technology is touching almost every aspect of the non-profit world in developing countries. Mobile phones and mobile services are facilitating human health care, nature and wildlife conservation, research and education.

The article really shows how developments in mobile technology are making a real difference to a lot of people’s lives in developing countries. And it’s really impressive to discover that the mobile phones which are being used to facilitate all of these new improvements are in fact around 7 years old – with text messaging being the only real way that people can communicate with each other – there are no data services of any kind.

Although many of us would have not considered it before, people in developing countries (even those living off just a couple of dollars or so a day) now have access to a mobile phone. Today, in Sub-Saharan Africa for example, 30% of the population own a mobile, equating to in excess of 300 million people and many more have access via the phones of their family and friends, shared phones or village phones.

This huge growth has mainly been a result of the successful recycling market and the development of cheap ‘$20′ phones. It is also part due to the efforts of forward-thinking mobile manufacturers, who have spent an increasing amount of time to understand what people living in these areas might want from a phone. The example given in the article to have emerged from this user-centric design focus are mobiles with flashlights, which assist people whose electricity supplies may not be very reliable.

Local entrepreneurs who have learnt how to fix mobile phones have set up their own services doing so, and have created a mini industry devoted to prolonging the lives of mobile phones.

All of these factors together have resulted in more phones being owned by more and more people, and working for longer. Which has meant that certain mobile services have been able to be put into place, making people’s lives easier and transforming development work.

Mobile phones are today providing a direct line of communication to farmers, doctors, patients, nurses, teachers and youth, and anyone else the non-profit community might seek to engage. Patients are being sent reminders to take their medicine, market prices are being sent to farmers, citizens are helped to help monitor elections, and activists are enabled to report human rights abuses.

A lesson to be learned for all of us lot then – when you inevitably upgrade your phone for the new iPhone GPS (or another latest smart phone) – don’t throw your old one away, recycle it. For the full article, visit http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7502474.stm

New data published by ComScore shows that Facebook has overtaken MySpace in terms of global unique users.

In May 2008, Facebook had 123.9m unique users, compared to MySpace’s 114.6m. Over the past year, Facebook’s unique users grew by 162%, whereas MySpace only grew by 5% during the same period.

The latest research compiled by IAB Europe and analyzed by Pricewaterhouse Coopers has shown that European online ad spend has grown by 40% over the past year, reaching €11.2bn/£8.9bn (from €7.2bn/£5.7bn)

Predictably, the UK, Germany and France were the key markets – accounting for two-thirds of the spend. However, other markets are growing significantly – Greece grew by 91%, Spain by 55% and Slovenia by 49%.

The IAB forecasts that 10 of the 16 European countries studied will spend over 10% of total advertising budgets online by 2010 – currently 7 nations have reached this.

If these current trends continue, it is predicted that the online ad spend in Europe will overtake that of the US by 2010, which only grew by 26% to €14.5bn over the past year.

New research by the Advertising Association and the World Advertising Research Centre (WARC) has shown that the total online ad spend in the UK reached a record high of £3bn for the first time over the last year.

Online now accounts for 16% of the total UK advertising market, growing 39.5% last year and remaining the UK’s fastest growing sector.

Ad spend across all media in the UK over the last year grew 4.2% to £19.4bn. The UK cinema advertising sector saw great growth, rising by 10.1% – although, at £207m, this is only worth 1.1% of the UK’s total advertising market. Outdoor advertising also grew by 4.6%, to £1.05bn, which gives it a 5.5% share of the UK advertising market.

Press is still the largest single sector in the UK, accounting for £7.7bn, which is around 40% of the UK advertising market. However, there was some bad news for press advertising as it saw a decline of 1.6%. Direct mail advertising also saw a decline, but a much greater one, at 6.5% taking its total spend to £2.17bn.

Many analysts have long predicted that online would soon be stealing market share from newspapers, magazines and direct mail – and these figures seem to prove them right.

New research by the IPA has shown that almost a third of people between the age of 15 to 25 have watched TV via the internet. And around 18% of people aged between 25 and 64 (a very broad ‘old people’ category or what?!) had too.

The IPA Touchpoints report surveyed over 5,000 people and also looked at mobile behaviour. It was found that 30% of 15 to 24 year olds watch video clips on their phones, with 13% of all mobile users doing so.

Jim Marshall, chairman of the IPA Media Futures Group, said, ” the young are still driving the take-up and use of digital media and new technology, however, the older age groups are also moving steadily towards greater adoption.” Personally, I would have thought that more than a third of 15 to 25 year olds would have watched TV online, but I suppose if this statistic was expressed as a number than a percentage it would seem greater.

Just as an extra update – overall broadband penetration now stands at 73% of all UK adults, with internet usage at an average of 45 minutes on weekdays and just over an hour at weekends.

New research by the Press Complaints Commission has revealed that nine out of ten people in the UK think there should be tighter regulation of information on social networking sites.

The vast majority of participants said they would like sites such as Facebook, Bebo and MySpace to follow specific rules and regulations to help prevent the abuse of personal information such as private photos, instead of them each having their own set of t’s & c’s.

For many, the potential for abuse of private information is an increasing concern, not just because of the threat of criminal activity, but also because information is increasingly being used by the media. Many media companies were criticised last year for the “digital doorstepping” of victims of the Virginia Tech shooting spree.

Of course, the other side to this argument is that people shouldn’t really be uploading any personal information or photos that they wouldn’t want others to have access to in the first place. As Charlie Beckett, the Director of Polis (a journalism thinktank at the London School of Economics) says “If you take pictures and put them on Facebook, you’ve deliberately surrendered your privacy.”

Sir Christopher Meyer, the chairman of the PCC, said that there is an “unprecedented scale” of information being put on to social networks, and suggested that “there is a need for public awareness about what can happen to information once it is voluntarily put into the public domain.”

For more info on this research, visit http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jun/05/privacy.socialnetworking

A new survey carried out by Ofcom has revealed that more than a quarter of eight to eleven year olds who are online in the UK have a social networking profile – despite sites such as MySpace, Bebo and Facebook having older age limitations. Ofcom says that parents need to keep an eye on what their children do online.

The research also shows that 19% of all UK youngsters have a presence on an online social network, with James Thickett, director of marketing research at Ofcom stating that “social networks are clearly a very important part of people’s lives and are having an impact on how people live their lives”.

The Home Office has been working with social networking sites, and is expected to publish a set of guidelines this Friday around best practice, security and privacy. The report is expected to recommend that profiles created by children are set to private by default, or are only viewable by friends nominated by the user. It also suggests that social sites maintain a distinct contact page listing contact numbers, such as 999, children can use to get help.

The Ofcom report looks into the impact of social networks on people’s lives in the UK as part of a wider media literacy campaign and surveyed 5,000 adults and more than 3,000 children. For the full research, visit BBC News:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7325019.stm

New research, commissioned by database software company FileMaker, has found that the IT skills of “generation Facebook” are being wasted at work. 1,000 people who have left full-time education within the last three years were surveyed, and it was found that they generally have a strong confidence in their IT skills, but the organisations they are working for don’t always make the most of these.

The research showed that 82% of the 16 to 18 year olds felt confident about their level of IT skills going in to the workplace – a much higher percentage than the 64% who felt confident about their interpersonal skills. 85% of school leavers and university graduates that took part in the survey were taught how to use PowerPoint software while in their education but only around a third are actually using it at work. Similarly, 88% learnt how to use spreadsheet software but only 65% use it in their job. And, just over half said they had actively looked for creative ways to use technology at work.

Tony Speakman, regional manager northern Europe at FileMaker, has stated: “The generation of people coming into the workplace now have had technology round them all of their lives, so whether it’s Facebook or whether it’s MSN or what it might be it’s second nature to them …” “[To a parent it may seem as though] they seem to waste so much time on these social networking sites but actually what this means when they’re put in front of technology in a business sense they’re in no way intimidated by it and it is second nature to them.” Speakman also said that the “much more positive attitude to IT” of these education leavers is good news for business, adding they are “not there to kill things [IT systems]“.

He warned that businesses are failing to make the most of this innate love of technology: “We’ve all got email and we’ve all got access to the internet and so we probably tend to think we’re completely up to date. But what we’ve tended to do in many businesses is we’ve automated a paper process rather than necessarily look at the capability of the technology that you have and ask if there are even more efficient ways to use it”. To overcome this, businesses should consider doing a skills audit of new recruits and updating job responsibilities to ensure roles are aligned with skills. Speakman said: “If you audit the technology that you’ve already invested in, audit the people that you’ve got and the skills that they have then you could really start to drive some additional productivity improvements – and that goes straight to the bottom line of any business.”

However, the research also found that there is reluctance among businesses to invest in training for graduates and school leavers. Only 12% of respondents had received some formal training at work, while 49% said they had had to make do with on-the-job or unstructured training. Speakman said: “We have a culture that does not invest in training. And it is a cost-related thing in my opinion but that is probably a false economy.” He added: “Companies that are using technology to make themselves efficient, to make themselves responsive, to cut costs and control costs will ultimately be the more successful organisations – so technology will be a significant driver so what we’re saying is let’s make sure we’re using the skills of the people we’re employing.”Businesses have a responsibility to drive IT skills forward as “education very much looks to business” when it comes to setting the curriculum, he said. “If we as businesses up the ante then education will follow,” he added.