A VC - Latest Comments in What Drives Consumer Adoption Of New Technologies?

Re: What Drives Consumer Adoption Of New Technologies?

Rocky Agrawal — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 18:52:55 -0000

A related point I'd make here is that the small networks and their limitations provide a framework in which to understand what something is about and how it can be used.

In 14+ years of product work, I've realized that most people don't have the time or inclination to understand how powerful tools work. Give them a blank canvas and they'll stare at it and go away. Give them something that outlines a framework and then they can see how it can be adapted to their needs.

Even in working with enterprises I've run into this. When we went in with a platform that could do anything, they didn't get it. We then created packages that highlighted various things that could be done with the platform. Then the clients could more easily see how it could do those things plus a few others that were specific to their needs.

The initial limitations on FB helped to define those frameworks.

Re: What Drives Consumer Adoption Of New Technologies?

brett1211 — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 22:22:59 -0000

Thanks Fred. Always enjoy the discussion.
-B

Re: What Drives Consumer Adoption Of New Technologies?

fredwilson — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:20:12 -0000

Great points Yule

Re: What Drives Consumer Adoption Of New Technologies?

fredwilson — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:09:19 -0000

What a great comment. Actually its a full blown blog post. You should post it on your blog

I love the marketers vs accountants comparison!

Re: What Drives Consumer Adoption Of New Technologies?

mgnyc — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:31:54 -0000

Thanks Fred, my thoughts exactly. Facebook's a classic example of proper mix of design/execution/timing.

Re: What Drives Consumer Adoption Of New Technologies?

Yule Heibel — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:49:49 -0000

Good points. In your blog you do, however, focus in on a specific area (as per your blog's title, a VC). That makes it all hang together, and focuses your insights. Others might think out loud, but it's unfocused (although in the aggregate, it can all cohere into a pattern).

Are you familiar with the term "bricolage" (in Levi-Strauss' academic-structuralist sense)? The Bookman (blog) describes it as a "willingness to make do with whatever is at hand... The ostensible purpose of this activity is to make sense of the world in a non-scientific, non-abstract mode of knowledge by designing analogies between the social formation and the order of nature. As such, the term embraces any number of things, from what was once called anti-art to the punk movement’s reinvention of utlitarian objects as fashion vocabulary..."
http://thebookman.wordpress...

I'm way too scientifically-minded to appreciate bricolage as any kind of ideal, and I'm definitely not saying that either one of us is a bricoleur, or that I want to be one and do bricolage (although it sometimes feels like that's what I'm doing). But even when you're just "thinking out loud," I do think that your expertise lets you record your "rarely ...completely baked thoughts" like ingredients in a recipe. And your readers know that they often enough add up to a movable feast: they cook your stuff in the comments board - to use a typically bricolage-y analogy.

On the other side of the coin, there's the rock star blogger, someone so star-like s/he can blog about underwear and people read it. (In fact, people would probably read it *because* it's about underwear...) I'd rather chew off my own leg than fill those boots, though. The pressure would kill me. ;-)

Re: What Drives Consumer Adoption Of New Technologies?

fredwilson — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 08:11:14 -0000

No, they built real viral channels that work

Re: What Drives Consumer Adoption Of New Technologies?

fredwilson — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 06:58:09 -0000

Blogging is thinking out loud for me and I rarely think in completely baked thoughts

Re: What Drives Consumer Adoption Of New Technologies?

fredwilson — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 06:58:07 -0000

I like taking an idea and working on it over four or five posts over a period of time

I do that a lot

Re: What Drives Consumer Adoption Of New Technologies?

brett1211 — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:50:58 -0000

Gosh, I love this point but I think I read something completely different than both Fred and Alex.

”Is a user willing to put in the effort to learn about this new technology and incorporate it in his current habits”? "

"Simple" not only refers to "simple to use," but to "simple to understand the value of."

To me this point and the point of this blog post is about the need for a clear value proposition. People are willing to invest a lot of effort into adopting something if the perceived value is high. Chemotherapy is a horrendous experience and doesn't always work, but given the alternative (death) it's a no brainer. Alternatively, if the perceived value is low, the less forgiving users will be. I'm not going to register, verify an email, and create a profile when all i want to do is play a game of solitaire on the train for five minutes. **This is reminds me of the relationship between price elasticity and wealth (or is it income?).

Clearly and concisely articulating the value proposition is a real problem for lots of great technology platform companies*, twitter included (it's NOT ironic that Fred went through and did just that to get this conversation started). It's not as if people havent heard of these platforms! Everyone COULD benefit from joining Facebook or using Twitter but not everyone realizes it. That the most common thing I hear from non-twitter users "why the hell would i do (need) that?" The main reason that people try these services, despite having no idea what they are, is "everyone else is using it (therefore it must have value)." The main reason services don't stick is because people give up before they find value.

This is where Alexander's concept of "first use" comes up. I bet Marketers try a lot harder to "get" twitter than Accountants because they know it's something they are supposed to be using. Twitter is doing a lot to improve this by suggesting friends and auto-populating new accounts with popular tweeters. It's getting better but still needs work.

Ultimately, the proportional relationship between perceived value and one's willingness to expend effort to adopt is more people than products. This is classic Geoff Moore/technology adoption curve. Technologists find the perceive value in technology for technology's sake. They could care less if something is "simple" or easy to use or about sharing or whatever as long as it is technically interesting or new or difficult. Early adopters find technology interesting, but only because of it's ability to affect disruptive change. They are willing to put up with a lot of pain because they perceive huge benefits. The majority just wants to keep pace. Skeptics actually perceive negative value and thus will hold out until non-adoption itself becomes so painful that it is easier just to capitulate! Different people see different value in different things.

In conclusion, "simple" not only refers to "simple to use," but to "simple to understand the value of." A "clear value proposition" should make the list of drivers of consumer adoption. Thanks.

@brett1211
http://timetogetstarted.wor...

PS. Fred and Daniel, speaking of summarizing, can we get some yelp-like technology to parse out repeated phrases? Also what about multimedia comments (see below)?

PSS. Alex's blog is great. People should check it out.

*People are insensitive to large relative prices increases for goods that are cheap relative to their wealth, but they are very sensitive to small relative price increases on goods that a large purchases relative to their wealth. In English, I am virtually indifferent between a $1 pack of gum and a $1.10 pack of gum (10% price increase), but raising the price of a house from $100K to $110K (also 10% increase) is game changing. To complete the analogy, the amount of friction users are willing to overlook is proportional to the value they perceive. Thus I believe that a users initial perceptions are all the more important if the value proposition is marginal or unclear..

**Drop.io is another example of a great platform technology and "great" product (simple, sexy, social, useful etc) that risks missing consumer adoption because people don't fully appreciate all of the things you can do with it. Getdropbox is much less versatile product that may ultimately win because it is much more intuitive. (Hey Fred and Daniel, when do I get to embed a Compete.com chart in my disqus comments ? When do we get multimedia comments?) I think this is why we keep seeing "simple" and "uncomplicated" and "focused" come up as important drivers of consumer adoption.

Re: What Drives Consumer Adoption Of New Technologies?

brett1211 — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 22:37:53 -0000

great point.

Re: What Drives Consumer Adoption Of New Technologies?

Advertising Guy — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:51:50 -0000

Sometimes it's actually secondary features that really deliver an audience. The iPhone built on the success of the iPod and that product delivered coherent file management as much as anything else. Pandora's user experience is definitely simple, but have you read about what the peeps behind the scenes do to categorize music as data? It's a monstrous meta tagging process that makes it work.

Re: What Drives Consumer Adoption Of New Technologies?

Yule Heibel — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:34:23 -0000

Yes, that was a very long post, even by *my* standards... Thanks for your comment, Fred (I replied, too).

I know I'm handicapping myself by not writing shorter posts because I know many online readers (of blogs etc.) really will not bother with anything over one or two paragraphs. "Shorter and more frequent" could mean delivering my "war & peace" length opus over several shorter installments instead, sort of like a series. That could work - something to think about/ act on.

Then again, not every post on avc generates well over 300 interesting and thoughtful comments that range so widely into so many areas. I really needed to stitch (or scramble?) some of that together...! ;-)

Re: What Drives Consumer Adoption Of New Technologies?

fredwilson — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:26:28 -0000

I read it Yule. You are a great writer, serious and thiughtful

I left a comment on your post

I wonder if you would build a larger and more loyal audience if you could figure out how to write shorther and more frequent posts?

Re: What Drives Consumer Adoption Of New Technologies?

Yule Heibel — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 01:43:19 -0000

It doesn't answer your question (What Drives Consumer Adoption of New Technologies?), but I had the cheek to write a blog post called Fred Wilson Is: (http://blogs.law.harvard.ed..., because avc.com and the people who comment here are just so darn amazing.

It's a looong post, and after much discussion of this and that (including Kathy Sierra, and Michel Foucault's take on Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon), I propose (at the end of my long long post) one version of completing the phrase, "Fred Wilson Is:"... Hope you don't mind - I really do get a lot out of your blog! ;-)

Re: What Drives Consumer Adoption Of New Technologies?

mgnyc — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:51:53 -0000

I concur Adam. Freakonomics.

Re: What Drives Consumer Adoption Of New Technologies?

mgnyc — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:45:04 -0000

Is Facebook considered new technology? Didn't they just offer a more grownup user interface than myspace?

Re: What Drives Consumer Adoption Of New Technologies?

obscurelyfamous — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 22:34:23 -0000

Send me an email at daniel@disqus.com. I'll fix this for you.

Re: What Drives Consumer Adoption Of New Technologies?

SF — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 19:16:54 -0000

"Something else" disguised as entertainment? Your own example of parents doing sports (bowling) disguised as entertainment because of how Wii looks and works. [Fiction] Books of course, would be another possible example, if less recent than you are looking for.

Re: What Drives Consumer Adoption Of New Technologies?

davidkpark — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:51:53 -0000

That doesn't surprise me. I'm applying his thesis, as well as Blank's customer development and Ries' development frameworks to the online children's education space. We'll see what happens.

Re: What Drives Consumer Adoption Of New Technologies?

Mark Essel — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:19:19 -0000

Everyone hates the second two but me. Hugo Weaving just makes a great villain.

Re: What Drives Consumer Adoption Of New Technologies?

fredwilson — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:41:23 -0000

We hardly ever hit 300 comments in this community. This is a big topic, for sure

Re: What Drives Consumer Adoption Of New Technologies?

fredwilson — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:21:26 -0000

We hardly ever hit 300 comments in this community. This is a big topic, for sure

Re: What Drives Consumer Adoption Of New Technologies?

fredwilson — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:21:25 -0000

Not so much

Re: What Drives Consumer Adoption Of New Technologies?

fredwilson — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:21:24 -0000

Great suggestions for follow-on blog posts on this same topic