Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Adoption rates for technology




The evolution of media on the Internet is following the path of traditional media, only at a much faster pace. In fact it is possible to chart the progress of most technology over the recent decades . This graph is available from:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/02/10/opinion/10chart.large.gif

It shows:
Radio @ 50% adoption by 1930
Colour TV @ 50% adoption by 1970

However I feel the uptake rates of these technologies is more important:
Radio - 50% in 10 years
Colour TV - 50% in 10 years

What's even more impressive is the the uptake of the Internet to 50% in just 6 or 7 years (and the VCR in even less). I now can't help wondering what's likely to have a faster uptake rate in the future. Will it be a new device (less likely) or will it just be a device-agnostic service (more likely)?

Note:
It also reminds me that I need to re-read the 'Waves of Power' book written by David Moschella back in 1997, where he predicted the growth of the network economy and gave future growth rates for information-based sevices.

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