Dan Koboldt has a very nice recap of the various sequencing technologies presented at last week's Advances in Genome Biology and Technology meeting. I totally agree with his central point:
The recent proliferation of sequencing technologies - each with their own characteristic profile of strengths and weaknesses - has been bewildering, especially given the excessive hype being sprayed around as companies seek to raise venture capital and drown out their competitors. However, I think Dan's right that the market is now openly segmenting as each platform seeks to find the applications that best fit its strength/weakness profile.As one notable example, it's very clear now that the third-generation single molecule sequencing technology developed by Pacific Biosciences - originally touted as being a replacement for second-generation platforms - will be restricted to niche applications (rapid confirmation of variants discovered by another technology, and supplementing second-gen sequencing in the assembly of novel genomes) for the foreseeable future due to its low yield and high error rate.Anyway, if you're interested in how the sequencing field is starting to play out, go and read Dan's post. 
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