Gartner’s Hype Cycle is a graphical representation of technology’s life cycle. It is important for us to understand that nothing stays the same forever, especially for social media channels. Gartner explains these changes through five phases known as: Technology Trigger, Peak of Inflated Expectations, Trough of Disillusionment, Slope of Enlightenment, and Plateau of Productivity. Every piece of technology will find themselves somewhere on this chart during it’s life span. So the question is, where does VK fall on this Hype Cycle? After all the research I’ve done, VK definitely lines up with Gartner’s theory. I believe that as of 2016 VK is in stage four on the chart. Their Technology Trigger occurred when VK first launched and went through its first few years of growth. There was a lot of hype surrounding VK and Russians quickly flocked to the Social Channel. It was never meant to be a social media outlet that spread around the world but never the less it did begin to gain influence in all of Eastern Europe. It got so popular that even Facebook was being ignored in the region. That in itself is a huge accomplishment and the success lead to VK being the most popular Social Media outlet in Russia.
After their initial success things started to change a little bit. VK offers both music and video uploads to their site but developers refused to adhere to copyright laws that restricted this type of activity in the country. This lead to VK running into lawsuits that made users start to question the platform. That was their Peak of Inflated Expectations.
Despite all of that VK never stopped being Russia’s most used outlet, but that doesn’t mean other platforms such as Facebook and Instagram didn’t start to gain ground in the region. VK’s lack of willingness to upgrade their design and infrastructure lead to the Trough of Disillusionment while Facebook continue to gain popularity. Then we start to get into present day trends. As you see in the [graph below] VK is still the most influential social media channel in Russia, and just a few years back Facebook was still in the same position it is in now. That means Russian users are remaining loyal to the social media outlet that gives them the chance to connect with their own people effectively because their users keep increasing exponentially while Facebook and Instagram’s growth is becoming more and more stagnant. That is why due to the research and evidence I believe that VK is currently in Stage Four of Gartner’s Hype Cycle: Slope of Enlightenment.
Daniel Writes 