In Gartner’s 2011 Hype Cycle trend tracking, this year they devoted an entire Hype Cycle just on “THE CLOUD” and I blogged about this previously. In the year before, “THE CLOUD” was broken down to three categories, namely; Cloud Computing, Cloud Web/Platforms, and Private Cloud. But in 2011, Gartner shows how “THE CLOUD” has splintered into 30+ segments/categories.
While “THE CLOUD” enterprise is still early in the hype cycle and will take years to fully mature, we also see other technology industry segments and services experiencing a splintering effect as they mature. Search, for example.
While Google may have been the dominant force in search for a long time, users now use different services for different types of search – for example, if you want to find a review of that new Sci-Fi flick that just came out, you would probably use Twitter, if you want to find a job, you might use LinkedIn, if you want to find a video, YouTube, if you want to find a person, you would use Facebook, etc.
Clearly, user behavior has changed around “Search” and different services have come to dominate the mindshare of users around different search activities.
But it’s not a static landscape either, and all search services are working hard to evolve to stay relevant to its users and make their services more sticky and attractive to new users. GooglePlus is a great example.
This is the constantly changing world of the Internet. A world where technology and ideas propel the entire industry forward and have the potential to change the world.