by jurvetson
I wanted to bring my personal perspective of the 5 steps people go through while adopting a new technology. It has to do with FriendFeed.
I have been aware of FriendFeed for several months, but never did much with it. I was not really sure what it provided, and I just did not have the time to explore it. But my interest built up as I saw more of the scientists whose newsfeeds I subscribe to begin to discuss their experiences with it. My interest increased seeing the mashups that were developing – such as the widgets that could connect a blog with FriendFeed comments, etc.
But I was still too busy and I was not sure if it was worth the time to figure out the best way to use it, what was required, etc. So my progression through the first stages was a little slow as I still did not really see how it would help me. There were no ‘local’ authorities of mine that had adopted it.
Then, just a few days ago, I got a lot of hits and the referer was a specific FriendFeed page about Science 2.0, where the website was being discussed. In fact, there was quite a conversation going on, one that I had to join. Now I began to see what could be really useful about FirendFeed.
So I actually raced through the last 2 steps very fast. Trial took about 2 minutes since FriendFeed is pretty straightforward and i was congratulating myself for the adoption stage even as I was writing my second comment.
All this would suggest that I am an early adopter. not an innovator. Which is what I expected. I needed some interactions with members of the community rather than hearing it from outside experts.
But this also indicates just how rapidly a new innovation can move if it finds the right path. Especially when there are conversations happening, information being exchanged,
People will adopt a new innovation really fast if there is a conversation about them or their research interest, and they want to be a part of the conversation. I would expect most scientists would plow right through the latter stages of the 5 steps if their research was directly influenced by the conversation.
Technorati Tags: Social media, Web 2.0