Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations ft. Twitter

Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations is an expansive theory you can apply to any technology, to assess the rise and stream of spreading technology. It uses the percentage share of 4 groups of adopters of that technology, and each technology could share a different curve depending on its life cycle. The four groups are split into innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and the laggards. 

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In terms of a technology we didn't cover in our timeline, I wanted to talk about Twitter. It's a highly trafficked network even used by our own President for communications, and has enjoyed a quick rise and long period of relevance. I would say that the innovators of this technology were those who started tinkering with the technology when it was in beta or when it hadn't been released to the public just yet, in the very early 2000s. These folks tested out the viability and possibility of this platform, and even at its most basic state, they knew this could really be a helpful tool to people.

The early adopters of Twitter were often celebrities and those in public life, who people cared to keep up with. These personalities could update the public on their goings-on, or entertain followers with their thoughts and musings. Celebrity traffic started coming up in the 2009 timeframe. The use of this platform by these really popular people gave way to an even bigger demographic adopting it.

Young people! Teenagers! These folks of this generation grew up learning and being entertained by the internet, and its growing compatibility with social networking. With the IM craze to Facebook, young people were the early majority of those trying out and creating the norms of these services. Twitter was no exception! Young people made this site hip, and relevant to older folks who were keen on internet or needed internet trends to assess publics. This went down in around 2012-13. 

The late majority has been mostly older adults or professionals who have come to the site to express themselves in a new way, or professional people and advertisers that use the space to get traffic for their product or service! This is an incredibly important feature of twitter today. Sponsored trending pages or profiles are what networks many strategic messages to young and old people around the world, and so while it took a minute for these groups to notice the power of ads on social media, they didn't take long. By 2015, ads were everywhere on Twitter!

Source Intel:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Twitter