How long to ubiquity?

How quickly can a product move from niche to ubiquity?

Well, I guess that depends just how much society craves that product and how quickly industry can ramp up to supplying the huge demand.

We're talking here about diffusion of innovation - why and how quickly a product gains widespread acceptance.

Telephone diffusion in the US

The telephone is clearly a technology that is highly diffused.  Everyone has a telephone (or did have before it became possible to get by without a fixed line) but it's not something that happened overnight.  Economic hard times interrupted diffusion of the telephone in the US - the depression years actually saw a decrease in the percentage of households that had a phone installed.  Take a look at the graphic (opposite) to see the path to general acceptance that the telephone followed.  It took many years to reach the 90% penetration of the market it held by 1960.

Foot to the floor for the smartphone

Fast forward to the present day and look at the roller coaster ride for the smartphone.  Actually, roller coaster seems like the wrong analogy.  It's more like a drag race because, as soon as it got going, it just accelerated without slowing for any corners.

How did the smartphone become a runaway success in such a short time?  How does this differ from the fortunes of its great-grandparent, the original telephone?

Well, for me there are a whole lot of differences here.

The smartphone is actually a very sophisticated convergence of several very desirable technologies.  Most of them had been available in some other form before they were packaged together in a smartphone.  First of all there are the mobile phone features - the ability to make calls. send/receive SMS messages, check voicemail, etc.  This is what we've been doing for years with our basic Nokia type cell phones.  Everybody needed one but there wasn't anything very exciting going on there.

Handheld GPS device

Then there's the GPS functionality.  People have Satnav devices in their cars because nobody likes getting lost and they're a lot easier than reading a road map or (if you male) asking for directions.   Some people even went out and bought dedicated GPS devices for geocaching or other fun orienteering type excursions.

In-car Satellite Navigation

Hmm, all very useful but not enough to push most people's buttons.  So what is there about a smartphone that makes it special?  Well, I've covered that topic in a previous post and I have to say I'm staggered by what functions are actually packed into a smartphone.  Games, full web browsing through wi-fi or 3G/4G, productivity tools, video camera, and so on.  All made possible through a lovely touch screen interface.  Watch those lovely graphics woosh by as you lovingly caress that screen.

It doesn't really matter whether you splash out on an Apple iPhone or a high end Samsung or whether you join the mainstream and choose from one of the many cheap but capable Android phones.  They all put much more power in your pocket than anything that's gone before.   The functionality you get per dollar is quite astounding.

Much of the population doesn't even use a fraction of the technology available in their smartphones.  No matter, it's there if and when you need it.

Smartphone manufacturers moved very quickly to assemble these feature-rich devices.  I don't know if I missed something but one minute phones were, err, phones, then next minute they were these highly specified pocket wonders.  Convergence of a group of technologies (all the clever web stuff, sophisticated games, high quality video, GPS enabled applications) all seemed to happen almost overnight.

That level and speed of convergence is unprecedented.  Talk about speeding up the maturity cycle.

Shiny smartphones

The smartphone very quickly became a desirable object.  Fortunately for us it is also very affordable (if you don't need an Apple or you don't demand the top of the line Android).  Apple, together with their Korean and Chinese Android competitors, have cranked up their production lines to supply the world with as many units as they can devour.  That's a key point for this rapid diffusion -availability.

Choice is also quite overwhelming.  Just look at the Samsung Galaxy range for example - a model for every taste and budget.

Maybe not a particularly in-depth analysis, I realise, but some pretty compelling reasons why the smartphone has won our hearts and wallets so quickly:

• It has an incredible amount of functionality
• It's intuitive so virtually anyone can operate one without too much frustration
• It's the logical successor to your aging cellphone
• It's affordable and there's a model to suit every taste and budget
• It's available at a shop near you
• It's fast becoming everyone's favourite way to get online

When you look at it that way, is it really that surprising that it's a runaway success story?

More on diffusion of technology theory here . . .
Everett Rogers on diffusion of innovation

and here . . .
Roger Clarke on diffusion of innovation