Stardust Global Ventures

We spent the past week traveling to Washington DC for work. During that time we took the opportunity to use a new popular service called Foursquare. We’re big fans of location based services (LBS) and think they have huge potential for the future. Huge potential, but not for today in the mainstream.

A week of using Foursquare has me firmly believing that Twitter’s “What are you doing? question (recently degenerated to the 70′s “What’s happening?”) is pretty worthless until you add the “Where are you doing it?” component. Where you’re doing it leads to serendipitous meetings with friends and colleagues, old and new. More on that in yet another post.

Before I continue, I need to give a hat tip to Gartner, an organization I’m often highly critical of. Gartner has two concepts that I think fit very nicely in the analysis sphere. First is the widely acknowledged Magic Quadrant series of reports. The other is referred to as the Hype Cycle. While I think highly of the methodology in general, I’m critical of Gartner’s very narrow view. I understand they focus on the market their clients are in, and that’s appropriate. Too often people take a market segment report and apply it to the industry as a whole. Gartner simply doesn’t cover the innovative start-ups doing magical things in the tech sector, and to accept their reports as fact overlooks a myriad of facts and realities in the industry.

But in keeping with some of the hype in my reading lately and the Gartner philosophy, I give you my own personal hype cycle as it pertains to Social Media, VoIP, and mobility. It’s not complete. It’s not comprehensive. It’s a glimpse of how I see things going on today.

Let me elaborate a bit. These are simply my opinions based on thirty years of watching the tech sector and a boatload of criteria that may or may not be enumerated here as I ramble through some of my observations.

We’ll start on the right at the plateau of mainstream or very close. One might even say passe in some cases. Blogging, Skype,  YouTube, LinkedIn, etc. These are technologies that have arrived. In some cases, peaked or nearly peaked, but they are spreading into the mainstream. With the exception of SkypeHype, an uncertainty, they’re well known and predictable.

There are some you’ll disagree with, so I’ll get them out on the table. These are simply things that I see as fading from the scene or I believe they will prior to ever achieving mainstream adoption. Look for the red Xs – MySpace, Digg, Brightkite, and of course Jaiku. The surprise may be WiMAX. I see WiMAX as too expensive, too cumbersome, too light in coverage, and on the way out. Personally, I don’t think it will achieve mainstream penetration. I think Clearwire is going to continue in a one-horse race. They’ll win the WiMAX race, but I fear they’ll lose anyway because they’ll be too far behind with too much sunk cost.

There are at least two others that will rile up emotional folks. The iPhone is, in my view, past the hype and on the downward slide to disillusion. No let’s be clear, it will cycle back up and achieve solid mainstream adoption for years. It’s a winner and will be around for a long time. But in the hype cycle it’s sliding. That slide will continue before it turns a cornet at the bottom of the trough. We all have to hit bottom after a big win. The iPhone hasn’t done that yet and simply can’t plateau in the mainstream until it does.

Android is a mixed bag. I like the OS. I think it has potential. I think the hardware, those phones, peaked the first weekend on the market. I think the hardware will be the greatest failing of the OS. Android may well be another OS like BEOS, destined for  the dead media pool. That’s it’s a wonderful OS is irrelevant. That developers love it also. If the hardware sucks and isn’t adopted by the mainstream, there won’t be an audience to develop for. At best, it may live a life similar to the Sharp Zaurus – a spectacular device with a tiny niche and couldn’t ever win the major markets.

For me, the location based services are particularly interesting. Rather than elaborate here, I’ll bring those thoughts back in another post.

Keep in mind, these are just my own thoughts based on my experience. Your mileage may vary. Your opinions certainly will. If you’re especially passionate about something, leave a detailed comment or post in return and we’ll discuss it for the world to see.