There’s much discussion on the in blogosphere today over whether Jonathan Ross’ conversation last night with Stephen Fry about Twitter on BBC1 has tipped the micro blogging platform into the mainstream.
I measure the take-up of a technology against individuals I know and their place on the technology adoption lifecycle model developed in the 1950s.
The model splits consumers up into five groups: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards. I’ve long mapped myself, family and friends against these categories. Its an approach has worked for any number of technology innovations such as PCs, mobile phones, instant messaging and MP3 players. Here’s how it stacks up for Twitter.
- I’m an innovator or early adopter always keen to experiment with a new technology. I’ll play with its and don’t always expect it to work. I was slow to Twitter but usually I’m one of the first people to try out new products or applications.
- My mate and business partner Steve Earl is somewhere between the early adopter and the early majority. He’ll start to use a technology when its proposition is well defined and its value is established. He expects it to work and the engagement model must be well defined. Steve the market constituency that Geoffrey Moore wrote about in Crossing the Chasm. Convince Steve of the value of a technology and the chances are it will make it into the mainstream. In the case of Twitter, the technology life cycle model is holding up. Steve (@mynameisearl) has started using it but still questions its value in a business context.
- My wife is in the late majority. A technology must reaching maturing before she’ll buy. Form and function have equal importance. For example, she bought an iPod when the Mini was launched in pink. Twitter will almost certainly need to be integrated into other products that she uses before she’ll sign up.
- My brother is unquestionably a laggard. I can’t ever imagine him ever using Twitter. But then he rarely uses a PC and only occasionally turns his mobile phone on when he wants to make a phone call. Maybe if Twitter is built into an IPTV platform five years hence as a backchannel.
There’s plenty of other people I could add and likewise I’m sure you could plot family and friend onto the model. Its a neat way of quickly building insights into a product and starting to understand the types of PR and marketing messages required to move a product to the next constituency along the model.
Related stories:
Jonathan Ross comeback lights up Twitter – Neville Hobson
There goes the neighbourhood….. – Broadstuff
The Brits bring down Twitter for the first time. Mainstream media coverage glut surprises the tech geeks – Drew Benvie
Fry and Ross Twitter on TV – Staniforth
Tags: jonathanross, lifecycle, stephenfry, twitter
I’m with the Laggards and the Luddites on this one. “Twitter me not”… Frankie Howerd
The acknowledgment and acceptance of the latest communication method, it has been said, relies somewhat on the implicit endorsement of said technology by its predecessors. That is to say, how interesting is it that the mention of Twitter on radio, that most ancient of communication vehicles, is being discussed as the potential tipping point for something as “current” as Twitter? Regardless of the communication channel, it’s important that the channel used is one that speaks to your audience. Don’t just hop on a bandwagon, Twitter or otherwise, unless you’re certain that your message will reach its intended audience.