Several technologies advertised as the next best thing for business fizzled out within the last several years. I remember writing about blockchain, big data, and the metaverse, and now I wonder what happened to them. We love to jump on the bandwagon of “it’s the next best thing since sliced bread” before it’s proven the wagon hauls anything useful around.
Blockchain didn’t turn out to be the next best thing. It’s expanded beyond crypto into industries that need “trust” at a lower cost. Finance companies and banks use private ledgers to manage transactions that used to take hours, and now take minutes.
Blockchains make company supply chains more reliable. You can trace products through their entire journey and be assured that no one messed with them, because you cannot change blockchain history. It used to take Walmart a week to trace a bad apple; now it takes seconds.
Blockchain can help keep medical records safe and secure, protect intellectual property, and enable manufacturers to easily trace parts and maintain records. It’s only applicable to problems in specific industry situations.
The metaverse fell flat. Meta recently reduced its pure-play and pivoted toward AI applications for this tech. It gives the most bang for the buck in education and training, prototyping, and design by manufacturers, and real estate.
Big data didn’t turn out to be such a huge deal. Once all that data was gathered, sorting and analyzing the data took months or never happened at all. Since AI excels at sorting and correlating data, big data may finally live up to its promise.
Author: Kris Keppeler, a curious writer who finds technology fascinating. Follow her on X (Twitter) @KrisNarrates, on Medium.com @kriskeppeler, and on LinkedIn.
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