Buzzword compliant

Suggests product supports fashionable features

In the technology industry, buzzword compliant is a tongue-in-cheek expression used to suggest that a particular product supports features simply because they are currently fashionable.^[1]^[2]

Buzzword compliance is a modern version of the old practice of being checkbox compliant, ensuring that a product has all the features listed in product reviews. Since many of the decision-makers regarding technology purchases may only be semi-literate technically, the use of buzzwords makes a product sound more valuable. Among the technically literate, the phrase is sometimes used in a sardonic way, as in: "I have no idea what it does, but it sure is buzzword compliant", implying that perhaps the effort on the product has gone into marketing and public relations rather than the technology.

Technical staff, and those involved in recruiting and hiring them, also speak of a résumé or CV being "buzzword compliant" when it contains a large number of such terms. This can be a matter of some practical importance to a job-seeker. In many large organizations, those who receive and evaluate applications for employment will not be familiar with the domain of the job, and therefore can only assess buzzword compliance with the job description when deciding which applications the hiring manager will see.

Examples

Examples include:

Client–server products in the early 1990s
CORBA and COM based programs in the mid-1990s
Java-based programs in the late 1990s
- JavaScript, so named and with syntax designed to appeal to the Java marketing hype^[3]^[4]
Service-oriented architecture (SOA)
Ajax or Web 2.0 in 2000s and 2010s
REST and REST APIs in 2010s
Cloud computing in 2010s
The Internet of Things
NoSQL databases
Agile software development
Big Data
Docker and containers
Blockchain technologies as of 2018
Digital transformation
Ambient intelligence
Web3
Metaverse
AI as of 2024 (when describing anything that uses an LLM or other neural network (machine learning))

References

^ "Buzzword-compliant in the Jargon File". Eric S. Raymond. Retrieved 2010-08-28.
^ "Definition of buzzword compliant".
^ "Chapter 4. How JavaScript Was Created". Archived from the original on 2020-02-27. Retrieved 2018-09-26.
^ Severance, Charles (February 2012). "JavaScript: Designing a Language in 10 Days". Computer. 45 (2). IEEE Computer Society: 7–8. doi:10.1109/MC.2012.57. S2CID 29215508. Retrieved 23 March 2013.