How Cloud buzz has conquered media
These days if you try to find news involving the word “cloud,” you’re more likely to get an article about cloud computing than you are finding a weather report. If the amount of news referencing “cloud” is anything to go by, the media has embraced this new terminology with open arms, starting in 2008.
Basically, the entire increase during the last two years that you can see in the chart below is due to “the Cloud” and our recent fixation with the term. The graph is strictly for news sites (i.e. what you’d find at news.google.com).
Above: Graph taken from a Google Trends search for “cloud”.
The all-conquering Cloud buzzword
It turns out that the Cloud isn’t even something new; it’s a prime example of a buzzword taking over the duties of already established trends and technologies.
- Software as a Service (SaaS) is now referred to as services “in the cloud” or cloud-based services.
- Utility computing is now cloud computing.
- Online storage is now cloud-based storage.
- Problems with Google suddenly aren’t server or datacenter issues, they’re problems with the Cloud.
In fact, almost anything that was previously “online something” is now “cloud something.” Ultimately, the Cloud has just become a synonym for the Internet.
So how did this happen? There’s a bit of a chicken and the egg problem here. Did media jump on a trend started by companies like Google and Amazon, or was it the other way around? Either the Cloud has conquered media, or the media has conquered us all with this new IT terminology that is reaching new levels of hype every day. The truth, as it often tends to be, is probably somewhere in between.
What do you think about this buzzword craze? Will the Cloud evaporate (pardon the pun) or will it remain with us for many years to come?
Suggested further reading: You can read about the origin of the terms “the Cloud” and “cloud computing” in the article The origin of 9 popular web buzzwords.
Photo credit: Clipped version of original picture by Sean McGee Hicks.
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Garin Kilpatrick
December 15th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
Here is a funny video of Oracle founder Larry Ellison talking about how he hates the term “cloud.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UYa6gQC14o Larry makes a good joke about how “Google does not run on water vapor!” Cloud computing is a buzz word, it’s true, but I think the term is here to stay. The reason why I think so is because clouds are available to all, and are uncontrolled, just as the Internet should be. With talk of net neutrality being threatened by massive corporations the concept of the Internet being as free as a cloud has never been more necessary.
Pingdom
December 16th, 2009 at 3:06 am
“Internet being free as a cloud” … Getting poetic there, Garin.
seo specialist
December 16th, 2009 at 3:37 am
There is no doubt that Cloud computing is going to be next boom in www. People are already used of Internet and in couple of years cloud computing will win over traditional media.
Garin Kilpatrick
January 6th, 2010 at 7:08 pm
I agree that web based, cloud computing powered, media will sooner than later overtake traditional media. I am doubtful that this will happen in a couple years, but hopefully within the next decade or two. Newspapers are dying, but not yet dead. No one has even started talking about the “death of tv” yet so there is still a long way to go.
Thanks
I tend to get poetic when it comes to the freedom of the net, and I am very thankful to live in a country where I am not restricted from engaging with other like minded people from different parts of the world. Viva the WWW.
John
March 3rd, 2010 at 11:22 am
The Cloud Computing buzz as well as SaaS (Software As A Service)will be around as long as there is money to be made. Netbooks and Mobile devices are an example of the cloud influence.