“Some inventions ‘take the world by storm’ (archetype: the Sony Walkman). Others seem to fail, lie dormant for decades, but when ‘their time has come’, their use grows quickly, even explosively (archetype: the fax machine). Most achieve slow penetration at first, then their adoption grows more quickly, but later slows down again. A broad social psychological / sociological theory called Diffusion of Innovations (DoI) Theory purports to describe the patterns of adoption, explain the mechanism, and assist in predicting whether and how a new invention will be successful.”

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