How Overhyping Killed KDE 4

I was browsing around Digg as I normally do an noticed KDE 4 point blah blah came out recently. KDE 4 I remember when it was first being developed and the buzz was crazyness. My question is what happened, it seems to me that it came out and no one really cared. I think KDE 4 was extremely over hyped and was so built up on being so new and innovative but just died; why?

I think it is possible for things to be over hyped. I mean the consumer or users cause I guess no one is buying KDE since its Linux and we love our free things. But with all seriousness KDE 4 was over hyped by the community and KDE developers creating to much excitement, that when it actually came out everyone was like this is it?

I was excited for KDE 4 Myself but when it finally came out that was my exact reaction. "This is it?" was exactly what I was thinking. I got sucked into the KDE 4 hype and was waiting and waiting and watching the videos of plasma drooling over its sexiness.

Why is it finally came out and I waited for it to download, and then waited while it burned to a CD, and then waited to install it. The whole time I was waiting it was just to much, I wanted to try KDE 4 and see plasma and show it off to all my Microsoft using friends and brag to them; "behold this is Linux!"

But that is not what happened. What happened when it finally installed and I logged in, I felt it wasn't finished. I guess software is never finished because it can constantly be upgraded but I wanted more. It really wasn't as exciting as I thought it would be.

I think me already being a compiz fusion user at the time, if it was even called compiz fusion at the time. It has changed names so much over the last few years I do not even really know what it is called anymore. But back to the topic at hand I think compiz fusion blew me away so much before hand that I thought KDE 4 was going to be as life changing and innovative as compiz fusion was to Linux. All the developers and bloggers and Linux community made me believe this, and I trusted them.

I am not saying that the community lied to me, I love the Linux community it is like no other. But my point here, is the dangers of long term hype. Its not just Linux, new beta websites release you tube videos showing off amazing things all the time, only after release they are really just bland.

Are the pre-release youtube videos, demos and developers spreading lies? The answer is no, for the most part they are not spreading lies, what they write about and show off in videos is not false advertising, its usually what comes out.

The problem here is developers create so much hype about their products and the hype lasts months and maybe years, which it seems as they hype sits in our heads we build the things up to be the next greatest thing since sliced bread that when it finally comes out we have cultivated this image in our head so much that when we actually try it, its not all we hyped it up to be.

Overhype with mass media and instant communications I think is enough to kill a product. I think developers need to keep there mouths shut until they are releasing there products to the public. The products are good, and although they just want to excite the community about it, they could end up destroying it, before it is released. Developers need to find the happy medium between good advertising and creating over hype which could destroy their product.