Welcome to the March 2023 edition of Top Conversations in Technology, where we break down which topics are leading, rising and falling each month to help technology marketers maximize relevance and adapt to changing market dynamics. In this month’s analysis, we focus on variations in news and blog citation volumes month-over-month (versus February 2023) and year-over-year (versus March 2022).
Where were you the day the earth stood still? Friday March 13, 2020, I was in my child’s classroom, talking with her teacher about the likelihood of a two-week shutdown. I asked what plans would be to cover curriculum ahead of the upcoming spring break, which timing-wise bought us three weeks. We touched on how weird it seemed that we were even discussing this. Little did we know.
Every March since, I look at technology conversation drivers and marvel at how extreme the changes are from March 2019 (#1: smartphones) to March 2020 (#1: supply chain) to March 2021 (#1: Bitcoin) and beyond (#1 in both 2022 and 2023: Cryptocurrencies). Other standouts from March 2020 include #2 Video Conferencing (currently #22) and #7 Educational Technology (now #57). Of those remaining in the forefront, Layoffs ranked #4 (currently #10) and Misinformation ranked #8 (currently #16). The more hot topics change, the more they stay the same.
So what about the current top 10? These days, tech conversations are dominated by Cryptocurrencies and Artificial Intelligence. Cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin ranked #1 and #2 in March 2023, both showing sizable gains (up 24% and 23%) tied in large part to coverage of the fall of Silicon Valley Bank, devaluation of various individual currencies, and questionable endorsement deals. #3 Smartphones (up 8%, TikTok CEO testifies in Congress) and #4 Artificial Intelligence (up 23%, meteoric rise of ChatGPT) held their positions in the rankings. ChatGPT contributed around 90K stories to the AI total (and over 218K mentions in March on its own). Drones rounded out the top five, bouncing back to #5 (up 26%) tied to coverage of drone strikes in Ukraine.
There was slightly more movement in rankings #6 to #10 despite no volume declines. #6 Supply chain dropped one spot despite posting a 13% gain. Blockchain slipped to #7 (but was up 11% in volume), Cybersecurity held at #8 in the lead-up to RSA Conference but also due to TikTok-related security threats and data breaches. #9 Ecommerce (up 23%) switched places with #10 Layoffs (up 2%). Beyond that, top ten-adjacent topics Wi-Fi (#11, up 10%), Semiconductors (#12, up 8%) and 5G (#13, down 9%) remained in the top 15 while Misinformation fell to #16 despite a 13% increase in coverage volume. Net-net: March rankings weren’t so much about losses but how much a topic increased. Because we saw some really.big.gains.
What’s Climbing: For anyone who watched The Social Dilemma, it should come as no surprise that Tristan Harris, executive director of the Center for Humane Technology, was front and center for their open letter urging AI Labs to “pump the brakes” on the wild, wild roller coaster ride of AI development and implementation. Mentions of humane technology were up nearly 1,200% (from 56 in February to 700 in March). The last time this topic spiked like this was when the aforementioned Netflix documentary was released (973 stories). Talk about owning a topic while being on the forefront of philosophical, societal reflection. Go Tristan. Other topics that showed massive gains from February to March were mostly lower-volume topics like #225 Utility Computing (up 324%), #233 Business Services Management (up 300%), # 215 Serverless Platform (up 258%) and #123 Financial Software (up 215%). Among Top 50 topics, top climbers were:
- #18 Venture Capital – up 137%
- #36 Data Security – up 120%
- #30 Generative AI – up 69%
- #46 Data Breach – up 47%
- #25 Encryption – up 42%
- #48 Smart Home – up 33%
- #29 Customer Experience – up 31%
- #41 Software Development – up 31%
- #41 Financial Technology – up 31%
It’s particularly interesting to see so many security topics gaining in the lead up to April’s RSA Conference. It should also be noted that Generative AI continues to grow, registering just over 65K mentions in March. Note, this topic registered about 179 stories in March 2022 (less than 100 each in the three prior Marches). I’m not even going to bother with the math there. I’ll just say three words: really.big.gains.
What’s Falling?Only 31 of the 233 topics tracked showed volume declines in March, and all drops were less than 40%. Topping this list were #212 Cognitive Computing (down 38%), #182 API Security (down 32%), #94 Conversational AI (down 31%), #203 Process Analytics (down 28%) and #23 Threat Telemetry (down 28%). The standout here is Conversational AI, which was down from a huge February spike but still registered over 9K stories. So sometimes down is relative. The bulk of drops happened in topics ranked between #101 – #200, but the most prominent topics (Top 50) to show declines were:
- #13 5G – down 9%
- #35 Virtual Reality – down 1%
- #49 Domain Name – down 8%
- #57 Educational Technology – down 1%
- #76 Domain Name System – down 1%
Remember, Educational Technology was a top 10 topic back in March 2020. It just goes to show deep shifts are around every corner and you never know when the world might change immediately in front of your very eyes.
So What, Now What? Three years ago I was thinking about how long I would have to balance my kids’ virtual learning schedules with my video conference meetings and work deadlines. Now, I’m wondering how I can utilize emerging AI tools to analyze data. Ten years ago, I was using my Windows 8 phone to look for news on “virtual currency” Bitcoin and check the stock price of newly public Twitter. The thing about technology is you never know what the disruptor is until it disrupts everything.
Questions? Comments? See a topic we are not tracking? Please share below, and we will address in future installments.
