Comments on: Non-linearity of technology adoption

By: cdixon.org – chris dixon's blog / Google’s social strategy

cdixon.org – chris dixon's blog / Google’s social strategy — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 01:42:02 +0000

[...] overall strategy and these posts on “commoditizing the complement” here, here [...]

By: Calculated Crunch News Rls » Blog Archive » Some thoughts on the “geo stack”

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 22:11:56 +0000

[...] from the bottom up and some layers turn out to be valuable and others do not (Christensen argues compellingly that stacks tend to alternate between commodity and non-commodity [...]

By: Calculated Crunch News » Blog Archive » Some thoughts on the “geo stack”

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 16:31:36 +0000

[...] from the bottom up and some layers turn out to be valuable and others do not (Christensen argues compellingly that stacks tend to alternate between commodity and non-commodity [...]

By: Some thoughts on the “geo stack” cdixon.org – chris dixon's blog

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 18:33:36 +0000

[...] up and some areas in stacks turn out to be particularly valuable and others do not (Christensen argues compellingly that they tend to have alternating layers of commodity and [...]

By: Jay Cuthrell

Jay Cuthrell — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 22:53:09 +0000

Broadband is interesting in the notion of a tethered or fixed mobile mindset vs. a nomadic anywhere anytime mode. Carriers are too fixated on dwindling ARPU for the known product set. I have high hopes for white spaces and non-location specific modes of access.

We're in the infancy of M2M even as we experiment with the current crop of socially oriented network toys. The full impact of having your toaster set status to “it's complicated” is still a few years away.

By: Mark Essel

Mark Essel — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 20:46:14 +0000

Dig your history point Shana. The value acceptance curve explodes when a segment of our society get's over the radical, frightened of the unknown feeling and begins using the new technology.

By: Tweets that mention Non-linearity of technology adoption cdixon.org – chris dixon's blog -- Topsy.com

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 18:41:02 +0000

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by dgnorton, sikerr. sikerr said: tip @Techmeme http://cdixon.org/2009/09/10/non-linearity-of-technology-adoption/ Non-linearity of technology adoption [...]

By: Jay Cuthrell

Jay Cuthrell — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 14:53:09 +0000

Wrong thread… brb.

By: Mark Essel

Mark Essel — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 12:46:14 +0000

Dig your history point Shana. The value acceptance curve explodes when a segment of our society get's over the radical, frightened of the unknown feeling and begins using the new technology.

By: SEOvsSEM ponderer

SEOvsSEM ponderer — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:59:43 +0000

Good thoughts. On a related note, the internal conflict of interest Google has is pretty severe. As organic results become better, the role of sponsored listings decreases. With limited relevant competition, there is nothing to stop them from optimizing organic search to insure that the results of paid search are still valuable to the user. Hence their focus on quality score in SEM.

By: cdixon.org / The inevitable showdown between Twitter and Twitter apps

cdixon.org / The inevitable showdown between Twitter and Twitter apps — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:41:35 +0000

[...] There is inherent tension between complements. If a customer is willing to pay $2 for a hotdog plus bun, the hotdog maker wants buns to be cheaper so he can capture more of the $2, or lower the price of the bundle and thereby increase demand. (For a great primer on competition between complements, I highly recommend this Joel Spolsky post. I’ve also been writing about complements, here and here). [...]

By: Non-linearity of technology adoption | Igniting Startups - nPost

Non-linearity of technology adoption | Igniting Startups - nPost — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:23:24 +0000

[...] From cdixon.org [...]

By: Links for Sept 13 2009 | Eric D. Brown - Technology, Strategy, People, Projects

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 14:25:33 +0000

[...] Non-linearity of technology adoption from cdixon.org by Chris Dixon [...]

By: cdixon

cdixon — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 21:55:44 +0000

a) thanks
b) i'm a big believer in looking at history to predict the future. doesn't matter how old it is. the same patterns repeat.

By: ShanaC

ShanaC — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 20:56:58 +0000

A) Beautiful post.

B) I was thinking about this today. We want to, we need to draw out technology trends. The interesting thing about technology is that as toolmakers and as beings who act on our environments, our technology shapes us as much as we shape it. Extrapolating trends is difficult, for how do you extrapolate something that you are shaping while it is shaping you until it matures out of its radicalness?

I guess that is why I agree with you about looking at old tech. I just would say- look at really old tech. Such as the Gutenberg Bible. And think deeply on it's radicalness. We're used to it. In fact, it's first encounter must have been extremely odd. it's history of our encounter with it probably is really telling.

By: ShanaC

ShanaC — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 20:50:18 +0000

Amen. I keep telling people this, Which is more valuable: The idea of the plow or the plow itself?

That being said, the flip side is not just creative commons work, is also how to keep the very bespoke and private, very bespoke and private. What's interesting is that work is also often made in a common, albeit in a very cordoned off one.

By: shaunmacdonald

shaunmacdonald — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:16:50 +0000

I've been a fan of Christensen since the Innovators Dilemma ... a book that helped us develop market evolution and value models within my team at Cisco in the late 90's and early 2000's when the giants of communications were Lucent and Nortel, and Cisco's ecosystem was in its infancy. Where the biggest companies and analysts miss again and again is in the area of downward vision and mobility ... and thus the disruptive technologies were typically more about serving a new market than out classing an R&D team.

You mentioned Google's interest in the open source movement. I believe there is an interesting wave forming around Creative Commons content. For example there are now well over 100 million creative commons images on Flickr, and Google recently announced its support and API for Creative Commons for its massive Google images application.

Our startup team at Mashup Arts is betting on the trend for individuals to share and use creative commons photo's, videos, and music while doing much more online collaboration and using much more video generated by low cost Flip and iPhone like devices going forward.

By: links for 2009-09-10 « Blarney Fellow

links for 2009-09-10 « Blarney Fellow — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 01:13:47 +0000

[...] cdixon.org / Non-linearity of technology adoption Complement effects are one of the main reasons that technology adoption is non-linear. (tags: economics strategy future startup) [...]

By: Shared Items: 9 September 2009

Shared Items: 9 September 2009 — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 00:31:43 +0000

[...] Non-linearity of technology adoption. [cdixon.org] Great piece about complement effects and technology adoption by Chris Dixon. I’ve learned more about business, investing, and entrepreneurship from VC bloggers than perhaps I could have from any MBA program. Okay that’s a stretch, but I heave learned a great deal from investors like Chris Dixon, Fred Wilson, and Brad Feld. And if you want to throw in the kitchen sink (as I did) check out Larry Cheng’s Global VC Blog Directory. [...]

By: cdixon

cdixon — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:28:17 +0000

That's the billion dollar question.

By: shearic

shearic — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 13:03:45 +0000

Fantastic post. Also loved the Joel Spolsky linked post, especially where it describes the issues this presented for Sun and how prescient that turned out to be in 2002.

By: Ashish Tomar

Ashish Tomar — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:58:56 +0000

Here is some real data from the mobile world –
Early 1990s
Pure product companies – None
Integrated product companies with in-house communication technology – Moto, Nokia, Philips, Qualcomm, Siemens, Erricson
Communication technology providers – TI, Qualcomm, Moto, Philips

Early 2000s
Pure product companies – Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Siemens, Motorola, Chinese OEMs/ODMs
Integrated product companies with in-house communication technology – Only One (Nokia)
Communication technology providers – TI, Qualcomm, Moto, Philips, FreeScale, Infineon, Ericsson Mobile Phones

Late 2000s-
Nokia's advantage in the connectivity layer was gone – Apple took advantage of the communication technology commoditization.

By: Greg4

Greg4 — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:46:23 +0000

The broadband comment's a great example. It also reminds me of the apocryphal quote from Thomas Watson about the world market for computers being about five. And I believe one of the top consultancies advised AT&T to get out of the mobile phone business back in the 80's because the market was too small / not growing.

I wonder which other products currently considered niche are going to be ubiquitous once the right complements are in place. The writing is already on the wall for genetic screening, although medical knowledge (the complement) has a long way to go to make it useful for your average person. Super-computers? Carbon nano-tubes? Fusion reactors? Oh wait, those don't really exist yet.