OK, I’m not quite that, but I AM not what this piece would call an Early Adopter of Technological Innovations, either:
the first 2.5% of the adopters are the “innovators”
the next 13.5% of the adopters are the “early adopters”
the next 34% of the adopters are the “early majority”
the next 34% of the adopters are the “late majority”
the last 16% of the adopters are the “laggards” (or Luddite)
I’m probably “early majority” on a few things, “late majority” on most, and a “laggard” on more than a few.
This article describes “How to identify an early adopter of the Next Big Thing”. This SO not me.
I remember kicking and screaming into the compact disc age. I mean, I had 1200 albums. Are they going to become obsolete? (Answer: largely.) My first CD purchases were new albums (Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits was definitely one), and lots of greatest hits (Elton John, Billy Joel for two) after friend Broome bought me the first four Beatles’ albums on CD and I was unable to play them.
I also had some DVDs (for free from cereal boxes), and the machines had achieved at least a 50% penetration when I finally got a player about a year and a half ago.
I still don’t own a Palm pilot (and would be afraid to do so, lest I lose it and become totally paralyzed). I’m currently without a cell phone (though that, unfortunately, will change soon), and I think Blutooth is what someone with bad dental problems suffers from. (Diffusion is the process by which a new idea or new product is accepted by the market, in case you were wondering.)
On the other hand, I never got stuck with a Betamax. I always felt sorry for Beta, which was widely considered the preferable technology, but lost out because SONY was outmaneuvered.
To my everlasting glee, I NEVER owned an eight-track. I was in someone’s car listening to The Beatles Again (that was the title), and in the middle of “Rain” , a the-minute song, the machine switches tracks. “You’re kidding!” I said out loud. “I will NEVER buy that technology. It’s stupid!” And apparently, I was right…for once.
What got me, blogger for little over a year, when seemingly half the world has been doing it forever, thinking about this, is an article in Advertising Age this week about “The Man” (their words invading My Space
http://www.myspace.com/vspink is a site for Victoria’s Secret
http://www.myspace.com/deadmanschest is the site for the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie
http://www.myspace.com/anythingbutcute is a too cute site for the Dodge Caliber
http://www.myspace.com/666, of course, is the site for the remake of The Omen. I may not know what to do with my three-month old MySpace space, but corporate America sure knows what to do with theirs.
(And I’m still having enough technological problems with Blogger that I cannot lift a comic strip into this post, one that says: “No matter how far technology advances, there will never be a better computer accessory than dot matrix printer paper.”)
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I was reading an article about net neutrality in the Wall Street Journal and was thoroughly confused. I went to the Wikipedia site and got even more confounded. Fortunately, the article in this week’s Metroland, currently here, but likely in the June 15 archives after next week, explains it in a way that even I can understand it. Oh, yeah, I’m in favor of net neutrality.