HYPE IS NOT WHAT IT USED TO BE

Hype is not what it used to be

Today is a day of stress.  We have to get the new BETA closed version of Pajamanation online.  We target this evening.   I am working on the homepage, trying to make us of one screen of real estate to put out our entire economic agenda.  Creating hype is a lot more difficult than it used to be.  

1.    We used to compete in our country but now we are competing beyond continents, with the world at large and there are some smart people everywhere.
2.    There is so much out there that it is getting increasingly difficult to be original.
3.    Customers no longer want you to give them what they want, they want you to change what they want
4.    Time for eyeballs is shrinking to a mere second, when people read one line about an announcement in 300+ RSS feeds a day
5.    Online Publishers are overwhelmed with new announcements.
6.    Website visitors do not scroll, they look at one page only and when they do not like it, they never come back. 
7.    VCs are doing one web 2.0 deal after another.  Selling Money is a sellers market, no longer a buyers one.
8.    The investment community knows that deals are binary: or success happens or it does not, there is no middle way.  The deals are getting both bigger and smaller, the middle has fallen out.
9.    Competing with the world tends to be more expensive than one thinks and the problems accumulate (currency, payment, compatibility, law, IP, staff..)
10.    This is quickly becoming a world of rhinos and microbes, where the first does not see the point of talking to the second.

There are many companies like us who have worked long on their project and when they come out they have to trigger the first step of hype cycle.   According to Gartner it is the "Technology Trigger" or breakthrough, product launch or other event that generates significant press and interest. 

To have a good idea of how hype cycles work you can RSS to Wikirage.  This site lists the pages in Wikipedia which are receiving the most edits per unique editor over various periods of time. Popular people in the news, the latest fads, and the hottest video games can be quickly identified by monitoring this social phenomenon.

And if that frustrates you, take a gun and shoot some paint balls at a site with NETDISASTER.

To end this blog with some good news: everyone who is dieting can stop now: the kilogram itself is losing weight.  We are all getting slimmer by the second.

Walter