The Rise and Fall of

Tech Words and Acronyms

December 30, 2010

2

To everything there is a season…

• In December 2010, Google Labs introduced its Ngram Viewer

...and there was much rejoicing

• Researchers can search any book Google had indexed for specific

words and their frequency of use.

• The Schwartz Research Group decided to look at some tech trends,

buzzwords and acronyms over the years. Following are the results.

• Note: The database goes from 1800 to 2008. Some acronyms and

names with significant secondary uses (ASP, Excite) could not be

analyzed due to too many false positives

3

Old acronyms never die…

There was a time when the news stories in eWeek/PCWeek would tout

WYSIWYG….

4

One search to rule them all

Yes, I once used AltaVista regularly and had high hopes for Digital…

Google came late, but is still growing in dominance.

5

The Format Wars: V1.0

Before the Blu-Ray battle, it was VHS vs. Beta.

Beta never stood a chance, although DVDs trumped them all…

6

Web or Internet?

The writers have spoken: Internet and the Web

7

Who wins the battle of the „Nets?

Extranets were the rage in 2001, but VPN dominates them all…

8

Beep…Beep….Battle of the Bauds

My first modem was 300 baud, but the 9600 baud seems to have the

longest shelf life, and 2400 baud has the most staying power.

9

Run it for us…

Client/server architecture had a good run, but SaaS took off in 2004 and

we can start to see the rise of “the cloud”

10

Remember the GIF tax?

JPG wins, but GIF makes a strong showing as does Bitmap.

11

BYTE remains the champion

In the end, it‟s all about bytes

12

Star Trek vs. Star Wars

While the Force is strong, Star Trek has gained steadily and was more

powerful for more than a decade…while Babylon 5 and Battlestar

Galactica never received the respect they were due.

13

Questions?

Contact:

Mark W. McClennan, APR

Senior Vice President

Schwartz Communications

781-684-0770

mmcclennan@schwartzcomm.com

www.twitter.com/mcclennan

http://www.linkedin.com/in/mcclennan

14

Headquarters

230 Third Avenue

Waltham, MA

02451

781.684.0770 P

781.684.6500 F

San Francisco Office

595 Market Street

Suite 2000

San Francisco, CA

94105

415.512.0770 P

415.882.5787 F

Stockholm Office

Blasieholmsgatan 5

11148 Stockholm,

SWEDEN

+46 (0)8 599 085 00 P

+46 (0)8 599 085 01 F

London Office

2 Sheen Rd

Richmond

Surrey TW9 1AE

United Kingdom

+44 (0)20 8973 2630 P

+44 (0) 20 8973 2631 F