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Studies

by Mike Masnick

Tue, Aug 2nd 2005 1:02pm





Tech Optimists vs. Tech Pessimists

from the the-battle-of-the-gadget-lovers-and-the-gadget-haters dept

The concept of the "early adopter" is well known, but one research firm is trying to expand the concept by overlaying whether or not people are "tech optimists" or "tech pessimists" in terms of how they look at new technologies. Not surprisingly, the optimists tend to have and use a lot more gadgets and various online services. However, by looking at how much money both groups have, the behavior is a bit more clearly explained. Optimists who have money are the traditional early adopters. Pessimists who have money will wait until the real benefits are shown. Optimists who don't have money will buy as soon as the offerings become cheap enough, while pessimist who don't have money will just be grumpy and complain about all of us and our gadget infatuations. Not too surprising, really, but it adds another way of looking at how people adopt new technologies.

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  1.  

    Adoption and the ugly child

    identicon
    Anonymous of Course, Aug 3rd, 2005 @ 10:48am

    I bought a Philips Velo palm-top when they first appeared on the market. It was going to change my life! I used it for email, web surfing, telnet, itinery, addresses. I used the heck out of it. Then winter came. When it got cold the power supply gave out, both the main and memory back-up went down. So everything was lost. I eventually gave it away. It's a shame because the ergonimics were pleasing. They dropped the price by half shortly after I purchased mine. Then they sent out a letter promising a OS upgrade and flash module to make it right... none of that never arrived. I Also bought an early Philips CD writer which was sold with the offer of a $300 rebate (these were expensive items at the time) that was never fulfilled. It's not just Philips, there are plenty of other instances although these were the worst. I used to be an early adopter but after being treated rather poorly I now try to be one generation behind the crumbling edge.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  

    Tech Realist

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    Anonymous Coward, Aug 3rd, 2005 @ 10:16pm

    Ok, how about a 5 catagory, instead of the standard "prisinor's dilema" box that every industrial psychologies cum marketing expert publishes because they know that's what the CEO remembers from the 1 psychology class he took in college:

    5) The tech realist - the person who realizes that due to a dominant market player, truly innovative techology is quite rare and, consquently, refuses to invest in the crap the dominant player foists off on consumers, instead early adopting only the stuff that is clearly revolutionary.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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