"The Hype Cycle is a graph that runs up quickly and reaches a peak where the expectations of the market are over-hyped. When it becomes clear that the technology is not all it cracked up to be, the market becomes extremely disillusioned with it and the hype dies almost completely. The technology enters what Gartner calls the ‘Trough of Disillusionment’. But then, as organizations gradually begin to understand what the technology can do for them, it moves towards wider scale adoption, what Gartner calls the ‘Plateau of Productivity’. At this stage, about 30% of the target market has adopted or is adopting the technology."

Gartner lines up Podcasting, Wi-Max, Blogs, Wikis, RSS, P2P, Desktop Search and many other cool new technologies in their path to wide adoption or rapid oblivion on a fascinating visual chart.

"With regard to content, Gartner says the provision thereof is becoming increasingly fragmented, and a result content and collaboration management technologies, like podcasting, corporate blogging, wikis and others are becoming increasingly visible."

See Gartner's visual display of where emerging technologies stand on the hype cycle curves right here.