Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations (World Wide Web)

 The Diffusion of Innovations theory attempts to explain the development and adoption of different technological or ideological inventions, such as inventions of new music formats and mass production of various products or equality of the sexes and races. Most of these ideas and technologies are not adopted and disregarded entirely. As a result, they may never be attempted again. However, there are a few technologies that do succeed and have staying power, and one of the best examples of that is the World Wide Web. As many with a basic understanding of the internet know, the World Wide Web is where all of the websites are. As a result, everyone you talk to uses the World Wide Web in some capacity. This means it is one of the few technologies revolutionary enough to break passed the group of laggards, which will be discussed further in a bit.

The Diffusion of Innovations discusses five main groups of consumers: Pioneers, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority, and the Laggards. In the case of the World Wide Web, the pioneers would be scientists, hospitals and mathematicians. The early adopters would be tech geeks who were interested in getting a computer and this gave them more incentive to purchase one. As the Web began to gain more traction, more and more people became interested, and some regular people with a bit of money to throw around became the Early Majority. After some time passed, the technology that ran the Web became more affordable as it became more ingrained in our society with things like YouTube, Google, Amazon, and others gaining popularity in the world. This brought in more people who were probably very hesitant, but felt a need to create social media accounts for things like LinkedIn and Facebook to stay connected with their friends.

At this point, just about everyone you could run into at your local Starbucks used the internet in some capacity. Airplanes started offering free Wi-Fi, and most businesses in general have guest internet and a private network for members of staff. Streaming things like music, TV Shows and movies have now become the hit thing, and now just about everything that required various separate devices can be compacted into just one cell phone. While laggards may have the old tech and prefer that, in all likelihood, they use the Web and, more broadly, the internet, to keep in touch with family members and organize events. At this point, everyone that has access to internet uses the World Wide Web. It has become so ingrained into our society that everything would probably screech to a halt without it.

Personally, I can't imagine a life where I don't have access to all of my music on my phone and I'd have to buy CDs and records for it all. I would've gotten by, but I probably would have complained about it a lot since I have access to all of these things now. However, it is interesting to see the development of these technologies and ideas as well as how they are adopted (if at all).