Misinterpretation of the Technology Adoption Lifecycle Model
There are two versions of the technology adoption lifecycle model. The original version (introduced in 1957 at Iowa State College) describes the market acceptance of new products in terms of innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. The process of adoption over time is illustrated as a classic normal distribution or "bell curve."
The second version is an adaptation of the original that includes a gap in the bell curve, between early adopters and the early majority. This essentially splits the adoption process into three distinct phases, an early market and a mainstream market, separated by a period of time called the valley of death.
