Nice of you to compile such a list, which I failed to finish due to tedious scrolling down page after page to get away from the advertising at top of each page.

Bottom line: not worth the hassle.

What, no mention of Vista, .Net, or Live? Oh, that's right, it wouldn't be polite to bite the hand that feeds you.

Isn't it a little premature to name the most over-hyped technologies of the century seven years into it. Think about it, you still have 93 years to go.

Outsourcing

Not as much over-hyped as under studied. Companies who would not dream of making decisions without thinking of the 5 and 10 year impacts rushed into outsourcing with simplistic, short term analysis, usually done by executives who would profit handsomely if the outsourcing deal went through.

Outsourcers are not motivated to innovate or reduce costs, so many companies are now paying for outsourcing inflexibility. What ever happened to “if you want it done right, do it yourself?”

LINUX IS THE MOST OVER-HYPED

Today's Linux is a complete mess of an OS, and getting worse by the hour. It's an unmanaged OS (by Torvalds), which violates the most basic rules of computer science. While Linux had great potential, it's nothing more than a Third World OS at this point. Linux is coded by clueless foreigners, who cannot write a complete sentence, much less trusted apps.

LINUX IS THE MOST OVER-HYPED

Today's Linux is a complete mess of an OS, and getting worse by the hour. It's an unmanaged OS (by Torvalds), which violates the most basic rules of computer science. While Linux had great potential, it's nothing more than a Third World OS at this point. Linux is coded by clueless foreigners, who cannot write a complete sentence, much less trusted apps.

iphone ... overhyped ... its started a revolution, and its overhyped .. i should stop reading already..

Green technology, virtualization ... good grief ... I've read some crap top ten lists before .. but this is hilarious ... and its not even April 1st yet.

VOIP is hype???! No, it hasn't blown at&t out of business, but it's for real and it is a steal of a deal! Best voice quality ever, very inexpensive and feature laden (at NO additional costs). As long as you have a reliable ISP, it's also reliable (my VOIP is up at least 99.9%)

Scratch that one from the list.

Thanks for the comments. Couple of points. As I said in the post, most of these technologies aren't failures and some are clear successes. That doesn't mean that they aren't overhyped.
With the iPhone, it was called the Jesus Phone! If that isn't overhyping, I don't know what it.
VOIP, I used it for most of my regular phone usage (not including cell) but I still think the hype for it has gone beyond where it should be.

You could sum this up on one slide saying: MS Windows98, Windows ME, Windows Vista, MSLive, MSN, MSTV, MSNBC, Windows servers, Clippy, and No MS Linux. MS is software insignificant. Doesn't anyone remember the two page article in the Wall Street Journal on MS use of Free BSD software?

Way too much advertising. I couldn't decifer what was real information and what was just advertising junk.

This list cheated with only counting 10 overhyped items. my list is older but these items are still a joke how many years later?
1 microchannel
2 Os/2
3 pc/Jr
4 any microsoft software product since 1982
5 betamax
6 rambus
7 dual channel anything
8 Dec's unibus
9 Dec rainbow series computers
10. Apple Lisa

I would appreciate knowing the list but the publisher's use of the slideshow format is out of control. As it is whenever I see a slideshow I just leave. It's becoming eweek headline = why bother.

How about AMD quad-core?
Double post 4TL.
My Co. actually uses virtualization on multiple platforms in our datacenter...

Here's the full list.

iphone - The iPhone is an excellent new take on smartphones and has greatly changed the interfaces of phones. But when early commentary referred to is as the most important consumer device of all time (and even called it the "Jesus Phone") the iPhone also set new standards when it came to hype.

Social networks - Social networks have changed the way that people connect to and collaborate with friends, associates and business contacts. But claims that social networks will become the main way that people use the Web and the Internet are only the tip of the hype iceberg when it comes to social networks.

Grid computing - How's that powerful grid system you built for your enterprise? Oh, you never built one? Don't worry, not too many businesses ever did, despite the giant hype that grid computing received a few years ago (notice the big drop in products adding the word "grid" to their name and description).

Outsourcing - It's so sad how outsourcing ended being a developer as a career path, and how the few developers left are so poorly paid. Oh look, a bunch of new surveys and analysis pieces on the recent job market. Let's see, "developers in very high demand" and "developers lead the way in IT salary increases". Looks like outsourcing was just another option in finding developers, rather then the much hyped end of domestic developers.

RFID - RFID tags are a great technology for managing warehouses and materials in the supply chain. But the hype driven rush to put RFID tags in everything from credit cards to passports isn't providing much value but it is increasing cost and decreasing security.

Virtualization - Ahh, the current darling of the purveyors of technology hype. Virtualization is a very useful technology for everything from cutting data center costs to easing desktop management. But the claims that virtualization will lead to the end of personal computers, with everyone just accessing a virtual desktop from the cloud, are probably more virtual than reality based.

Blogs - Blogs have unleashed the hordes of citizen journalists. Now everyone has a printing press with which they can speak to the world. Well, while blogging has produced some great new writers and commentators and has opened up discussions between people and companies, it hasn't been quite the sea change envisioned by early hypers. After all, for every one blog that is well maintained and heavily read there are probably a hundred that aren't updated and that no one reads.

Green technology - Everything is going green. Right now one of the best ways to attract investors is to claim that your products are green. But people aren't really clamoring to get green products. Green technology is more of a welcome benefit to other needs, such as cutting down the electricity bill.

VOIP - Almost everyone who moves to VOIP is pretty happy, from individuals to businesses, as VOIP provides both cost efficiencies and makes it possible to integrate voice into enterprise infrastructures. But VOIP is still a small puddle compared to the sea of calls made on traditional phone systems.

Video on the web - How many ads or product pitches have you seen saying something is "YouTube for fill in the blank"? People can't stop talking about video on the web and it supposedly keeps network heads awake at night. But like podcasting before it, video on the web will remain a nice complement to all the other Web content but most likely won't become the main reason people use the web.

Great list, very funny comments such as about the blogs hat no one updates. Is your next list the 10 best products, technologies and technology trends of the century?

VOIP. Not for me, yet. I can buy the equipment to DIY it but then my ISP will want still more money than it is worth unless I make a lot of international calls.
I still prefer a land line for basic local calls since my Cell phones are on Cingular which has lousy semi-rural coverage and terrible audio quality.
Try calling 911 with a cell phone and it is bad enough, now try it with VOIP and your house may burn down by the time they figure out your location. Sure I am a techno-geek but I want to spend my money on stuff that actually works.

Please, this list is ridiculous. Almost every new slide I thought - "wait, that really has changed the way I use the net", or "hang on, isnt that actually a really cool idea, its just shame it isnt catching on".

If we're talking about overhyping stuff, how about Vista and what a worthless piece of cr@p that turned out to be. Or the MacBook Air for that matter, or the iPod touch, which is bascially an iPhone without the useful functionality of being able to make calls.

Perhaps could hold a vote or something next time on what is overhyped, and then you wouldn't come up with this kind of bull.

What a let down....Since Jim was alluding to a whole century, I thought he would have mentioned the NeXT, Itanium, Transmeta, Microsoft's Passport and Hailstorm, SSDs (solid State Disks) and other stuff which were so hyped but at the end of the day were complete duds or never really impacted the way IT is done. Oh well may be they qualify for a different list.

Great list, very funny comments...

Perfect list. If something is overhyped, it has to be talked about outside of IT. Otherwise, there isn't enough hype to make it overhyped. The slideshow isn't the 10 things that have completely flopped. Things can be overhyped and still be very useful. I think a general rule of thumb can be if it's technology that has been talked about on CNN and bragged about as "the next big thing" on CNBC, it's overhyped.

I nominate Pay By Touch or biometric payments as the most overhyped. At the end of the day and $300 million dollars invested, it has vanished from the face of the earth.

Interesting list. Although I have to disagree with the social networking pick. It is huge and it's going to remain huge. Maybe not as we see it today, but it will always be there.
How about underhyped - I vote for RSS. It's a great tool that nobody outside of tech-savvy people know how to use.

What does "The century" mean? 2001-2100, or the past 100 years? I figured we'd get to look at overhyped technology from 1908-2007. And does the technology have to have actually come to fruiition, or is it enough for it to have been overhyped? For that, my number one vote is the flying car.

The list is automatically sort of worthless as Vista is not mentioned at all.
And I would add the Tablet and Itanium or was it Titanium

The list should have an honorable mention for self-important reporters who try to divert attention away from the continual hype in the e-magazine they write for.

Way too many advertisements on these pages. It's a pain to scroll through and your ad sales are hurting your content.

Also, the century? This article is already flawed....otherwise we'd see things outside of the past 10 years (which is a decade...not a century...duh.)

In any case, blogs? Social Networks? Virtualization? Those are all great technologies that millions and millions of people ar eusing right now.

How is Virtualization overhyped when we use it and...o and behold...it works! Yes, I can vitualize my workstation, servers, heck...even Mac's have great virtualization nowadays.

Blogs? Social Networks? Only a cray loon would attempt to say that they are overhyped when we are CURRENTLY LIVING IN THEM every day on the Internet. Might I remind you, this whole article IS a blog.

This article is terrible. Simply put. THIS article, with it's annoying ads and minimal accurate information IS an "overhyped technology".

Just a couple responses to some comments:
Yes, by century I mean this century, meaning the last seven years. If I had meant the last 100 years I would have said that.
Also, as I mention in the main post, most of the technologies and products listed are successful ones that we all use daily but that doesn't mean that they aren't overhyped. Something can be good and successful and still fall short of breathless claims that it would change the world or be most important ever.
A few people have mentioned Vista and some other products that have essentially been failures. In most cases, with Vista being a good example, much of the initial coverage was negative or at best luke warm positive.

VoIP deserves all of that hype...in 2005, the consumer market for VoIP calling grew by more than 250 percent and by 2009, there will be 28.5 million VoIP users in the U.S. alone...although it has security issues to deal with still popularity is gaining momentum.