Technology is always progressing, bringing in new applications and making other products obsolete. Technology follows a certain pattern as it matures. The Gartner Hype Cycle represents this life cycle. It starts at the beginning when innovation is triggered when there is a need for new technology or something is created. What generally follows the development of such technology is a peak of inflated expectations. There is a lot of hype behind new products but is it justified? After these high expectations are not met there is a period that is represented in the cycle as the trough of disillusionment. Consumers tend to lose interest or the product or new innovation fails completely. If the product doesn’t fail the next phase is the slope of enlightenment. This is where the technology becomes more understood and gains more benefits, has more adaptations. Finally, the last phase is the adoption of the technology to a broader market, which is referred to as the plateau of productivity.
So where does Yik Yak fit into all of this? Does it follow the same cycle? I personally believe it has followed the cycle and currently sits in the trough of disillusionment. There was an application developed which puts the cycle into place. There was so much hype around Yik Yak when it started. In 2014, it was ranked within the top 10 most downloaded social media applications in the US. Now, the trough of disillusionment… Interest has declined dramatically since the launch of the application. Some say Yik Yak will disappear entirely in 2017 (Who said that? This guy). By 2016, the application had fallen outside of the top 1,000 most downloaded iOS applications. In the same year the company’s chief technology officer left and the company laid off nearly 60% of its workforce. Benjamin Halkowski from Flat Hat News has already considered Yik Yak a failure:
“It appears that the app was indeed a fad. It came, it had its success and now it’s leaving. All that remains is for us to contemplate the reasons for its failure. Every failure is a lesson and Yik Yak is no exception.”
It seems, currently, there is no slope of enlightenment in Yik Yak’s future.
LIDREHO 