Archive - Nov 9, 2007
Technology Adoption Curves and the Twitter Lifecycle
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 11/09/2007 - 16:08In a previous post about ad:tech, I mentioned how I learned about NY Times' Facebook page from a twitter by Steve Rubel. I commented about this in the press room, and one of the reporters was surprised to hear that twitter was still around and active. I reflected back on hearing speakers at OMMA predict the demise of Twitter, Facebook and Second Life and it struck me that the standard technology adoption curve that we all hear so much about, may have a lot of interesting nuances.
One nuance that gets talked about a lot is the chasm that Geoffrey Moore talks about between the early adopters and the early majority. Perhaps Twitter is currently hiding in that chasm. Perhaps that chasm is tied to what happened at OMMA and other shows. Here is my proposed narrative for understanding a little of this.
As the innovators go out and try to convince people of a really cool new technology, and the early adopters start piling on, the laggards hear about this and try to convince everyone else that there isn’t really any value to the cool new technology. The innovators and the early adopters happily keep using the cool new technology. It keeps getting better and better, and then crosses a threshold where it becomes easy enough for the early majority to start using it and discover that the technology really is interesting.
This fits nicely with Twitter. Yes, us innovators and early adopters continue to play with it. Today, I received an email on the Second Life Educators mailing list, another gathering place for innovators and early adopters, talking about Twitter. Several twiterholics, myself included, came forward and talked about our experiences and the neat new tools that have come along to make twitter easier and more useful. Will it be enough to get Twitter to cross the chasm? Well, we’ll just have to wait and see.
Meanwhile, I’m following some new friends on Twitter, and even found a version of the the Twitter Life Cycle
Overload
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 11/09/2007 - 10:03The first snow of the season graces the fallen leaves as I dally in bed. It has been a busy week and I am on overload. Wednesday, I went to ad:tech, and there is still more to write about that. In the evening, I received additional emails about the alleged trademark infringement in Second Life, which deserves much more attention. Thursday, I addressed various business concerns and the never-ending effort to get a little more cash in the door. Last night, I went to a panel, “The State of Student Free Speech” at Quinnipiac University School of Law, sponsored by the American Constitution Society. It was a wonder session that deserves a write up of its own. Through all of this, I continue to work on my novel for National Novel Writing Month, NaNoWriMo, and process the great input I’ve been getting from a small set of friends who are reading the rough draft of my first write through.
I’m not officially participating in National Blog Posting Month, NaBloPoMo, which has a goal of putting up a post every day during the month of November. This is in part because I’ve got too many things going on already, and in part because the goal of putting up a post every day is one that I’ve been seeking for the past few months anyway, and intend to keep pursuing. I only missed one day in October, none in September, and two in August, so I’m in pretty good shape there.
However, on the email side, I’m not in as good shape. The unread emails in my inbox has expanded back up to close to 1400, and for the first time during NaNoWriMo, I didn’t write the 1,667 words for my novel which is the average number of words needed to be written each day to complete the 50,000 words by the end of the month. However, I am still in good shape with the novel. During my first week, I averaged close to 3000 words a day, so I’m currently at 21,306 words and interesting new subplots keep hatching
So, I’m overloaded. I’ll get my blog posts up as soon as I can. I’ll get back to emails as soon as I can, and I’ll try to keep my novel goals on track. Wish me luck.
