Blowing XML Bubbles
By Michael Floyd
At one time or another, everyone from marketing professors to
analyst companies has proposed various models to describe the cycle of high-flying technologies. Most picture a seed point followed by a phase of tremendous hyping, typically followed by a period of depression usually caused by the overhyping.
Such a model prompted me to predict, on the editorial page of the June 1996 issue of this publication, a cooling period for the Web. Well, so much for forecasting. In fact, I've applied this model to technologies including Artificial Intelligence (AI), object-oriented programming, and Java. The point of such an exercise is really to determine if a technology is just the "tech de jour" or whether it will be around long enough to have a lasting impact on the industry. Unfortunately, these models more often than not fail miserably in making such predictions.
So I'd like to propose something I call Floyd's Bubble. It works much like blowing a soap bubble. You start with a technology, and huff and puff until you get a sizable bubble. Soon, others notice your bubble, and join in the huff and puff. You lose ownership of the bubble—perhaps retaining 20 percent of its equity if you're lucky—but the bubble grows far bigger than any bubble you could have blown on your own. Eventually, your bubble reaches its elastic limit and it pops. Whatever is left is the true value of your bubble. It's this true value that determines whether a technology will succeed or whether everyone will walk over to the next bubble wand.
In the case of XML, I was curious to see what we'll be left with when the bubble pops.
