Good point about the Plateau of Productivity in relation to Philip’s analysis of the state of tagging. But as I’ve advocated before over at Tagsonomy.com, the Gartner Hype Cycle doesn’t really apply to tagging. Tagging is different from the enterprise category that the Hype Cycles address in many ways, not the least of which is the absence of traditional drivers like large scale packaged solutions, a community of parasitic integrators, and the psychological load of sunk costs - at least right now, though this could certainly change.

We’re using the hype cycle model / metaphor for lack of a better and more accurate way of understanding how social technologies evolve and spread - or fail to do so. Like Dr.Weinberger’s notion of the third order of order, our language and concepts don’t yet allow us to properly frame the new world.*

Put simply, we’re in the “horseless carriage” days of tagging. We may end up living in a world transformed by the automotive revolution, but as I’ve also advocated before, it’s just too early to tell.

*in fact, I’d contend that the Hype Cycle itself is an outdated frame for the technology realm, as a result of a combination of market and technology shifts. Time allowing, I’ll write this up more fully elsewhere.