Via Kevin Kelly I see that at some point Forbes magazine produced this chart measuring technology diffusion rates for various media and communications technologies since their year of inception. I found this of great interest because, since the mid-90s, I have been putting together various charts and tables illustrating technological diffusion [most recently I did this in my “Media Metrics” report] and this particular chart is quite challenging since you are forced to pick a “Year 1” date to begin each of the “S curves.” For example, what is “Year 1” for electricity or telephony on one hand, or the PC or the Internet on the other? That’s not always easy to determine since it is unclear when certain technologies were “born.”

Regardless, no matter how you cut it, the more modern and the less regulated the technologies, the quicker they get to market. Here’s a couple of my recent charts illustrating that fact. The first shows how long it took before various technologies reached 50% household penetration. The second illustrates the extent of household diffusion over time.
However, as Kevin Kelly notes, we usually never see any technology hit 100% household penetration (although the boob tube got close!): Continue reading →

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