Hype cycle

The Hype Cycle is a branded graphical presentation developed and used by US Information Technology (IT) research and advisory 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 emerging technologies through five phases.

Five phases

Each Hype Cycle drills down into the five key phases of a technology’s life cycle.

The term "Hype Cycle" and each of the associated phases are now used more broadly in the marketing of new technologies.

Hype in new media

Hype (in the more general media sense of the term "hype") plays a large part in the adoption of new media forms by society. Terry Flew states that hype (generally the enthusiastic and strong feeling around new forms of media and technology in which people expect everything will be modified for the better) 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.