1. Tran Cam Anh - s3255253
Research Essay
September 11th 2010
Lecturer: Patrick Sharbaugh

2. Table of Contents
Diffusion of innovation theory and the spread of Twitter
Overview ........................................................................................................................................................... 3
The spread of Twitter: A successful innovation diffusion ................................................................... 3
Twitter: The smart innovation .....................................................................................................................................4
Media outlets & celebrities: The effective communication channels ............................................................5
From 14 to 140 million users: The drastically-changing time .........................................................................5
World Wide Web: The interactive social system ..................................................................................................6
Criticisms .......................................................................................................................................................... 6
Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................................ 7
References ........................................................................................................................................................ 8
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3. DIFFUSION OF INNOVATION THEORY
AND THE SPREAD OF TWITTER
This paper aims to give an analytic description and evaluation for Everett Roger’s diffusion of
innovation theory, which explains the process in which new ideas are adopted or rejected in the
society, by using the case of how Twitter, a new social network released in 2006, has become one of
the most popular social networks with over 145 million registered users (Grove 2010).
I. Overview
Diffusion of innovation theory was initially studied by Gabriel Tarde as he pointed out the S-shaped
diffusion curve in 1903 (Hornor 1998). In 1995, the theory was fully developed by Everett Rogers
in his book Diffusion of Innovations.
According to Rogers (1995), “diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated
through certain channels over time among the members of a social system.” By examining the key
elements of the theory, especially the characteristics of an innovation and the innovation-decision
process, which will be fully explained later in this research essay along with the Twitter example,
we can understand how the communication process, i.e. the diffusion, can help spread a new idea,
i.e. an innovation, in the society. Thanks to its broad scope and significant utility, diffusion of
innovation theory has been applied in different fields such as agriculture, science, marketing
research and public health (Haider & Kreps 2004). The theory also has its shortcomings concerning
the methodological biases in diffusion research (Rogers 1975, p.294).
II. The spread of Twitter: A successful innovation diffusion
In his book Diffusion of Innovations, Rogers (1995) defined innovation as “an idea, practice or object
that is perceived as new by an individual or other unit of adoption.” To analyze innovation diffusion
theory as its best, I choose Twitter as the innovation since this social network has just become
phenomenal in early 2009, although it was launched in 2006 (Educause 2007; Saleem 2010).
Twitter is also one of my favorite websites and the following analysis includes some of my personal
opinions towards this social networking service.
Twitter is a free web-based international network that allows users to post short messages, which
are also known as “tweets”, and to response to others’; it is also considered as a micro-blogging
service (Gulati & Williams 2010). This service has been well-received for its ability to offer open
conversations in an extraordinarily simple platform, a wide range of additional applications to
serve both personal and business purposes and most importantly, the breathtaking speed (Johnson
2010). Twitter underwent an amazing growth in 2009, the year in which almost 20 million users
visited its website, making a 900% rise from just 2 million visitors in 2008 (Gulati & Williams
2010).
In the definition of innovation diffusion theory, according to Rogers (1995), there are four main
elements namely innovation, communication channels, time and social system.
1. Twitter: The smart innovation
Innovation, as I have mentioned, is the new idea that a person or a group of people will perceive.
Rogers (1995) stated that different innovations will have different rates of adoption, which are
determined by these following characteristics: relative advantage, compatibility, complexity,
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4. trialability and observability. Taking the Twitter as the innovation and looking at its diffusion, these
characteristics have certainly influenced the perception of users and communities towards this
social network.
Relative advantage concerns the superiority that an innovation has in order to take over another
idea. Twitter, which performs as a micro-blog and real-time social network, has superseded the
ideas of personal blogs and news agencies to some extents. Users can find Twitter more
“advantageous” (Rogers 1995) as a quicker way to express themselves and get the latest news both
from the spot and from the news agencies’ Twitter feeds. “Economic terms, social prestige,
convenience, and satisfaction” are necessary to be considered when evaluate the degree of relative
advantage (Rogers 1995). As Twitter offers a free, fast and convenient service and it’s getting more
and more positive perceptions from the society, Twitter has achieved these above factors to obtain
a great relative advantage, which leads to a higher rate of adoption.
Compatibility indicates how the innovation fits “the existing values, past experiences and needs of
potential adopters” (Rogers 1995), which are members of the social system. As the online mediated
community has always required the highest speed and informative contents, Twitter serves its
users quite well in these particular aspects.
Complexity, according to Rogers (1995), is “the degree to which an innovation is perceived as
difficult to understand and use.” Rogers also stated that an innovation which doesn’t require
specific and complicated skills and understandings will have the tendency to get a higher rate of
adoption. With this in mind, personally, I think Twitter would be one of the best examples. The
extremely simple platform using very few but basic texts and many icons to indicate its functions
helps prevent the users from being overwhelmed by technical IT tasks. The only notion that
Twitter will need to fix is the lack of foreign language options besides English.
Trialability is the opportunity for adopters to try the innovation on a limited basis. Launched in
2006 – two years after Facebook and many years after the popular blogging trend, to some extents,
Twitter is an adjustment of these former social networks. Therefore, users feel less uncertainty
when using this service, which will help increase the rate of adoption.
Observability is “the degree to which the results of an innovation are visible to others” (Rogers
1995). Thanks to the effective communication channels including media outlets and celebrity
placements, along the interactive nature of the social system - the World Wide Web itself, the
success of Twitter has been widely exposed and the service is directly recommended to the
individuals (potential adopters) in the social system.
To sum up, we can see that Twitter founders and developers have succeeded to create a simple yet
functional innovation that fits the characteristics to get a widespread adoption for the service,
which they have also managed to obtain.
2. Media outlets and celebrities: The effective communication channels
Rogers (1995) defined a communication channel as “the means by which messages get from one
individual to another.” He also mentioned the ideas of mass media channels and interpersonal
channels as different means to inform or persuade an individual to adopt a new idea.
According to Java (2007), Twitter gained its initial popularity in March 2007 after receiving the
Web Award at SXSW conference (SXSW 2010). But it was not until the late 2008 that Twitter made
its hit after appearing on CNN News as the key communication tool which had instantly reported
about the Mumbai terrorist attacks (CNN 2008). Afterwards, Twitter has received huge media
coverage (Eldon 2009) which, obviously, led to the higher rate of adoption for the service. Rogers
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5. (1995) stated that mass media channels, which are the means of communication in which one
source of information can access to a mass audience, tend to serve the function of informing
individuals about the innovation. CNN, Time, Mashable and other online media outlets have
contributed to the spread of Twitter by providing their audiences with the knowledge of this social
network.
However, in his study of innovation diffusion theory, Rogers (1995) also noted that the decision to
adopt or reject a new idea mainly depends on the role of interpersonal channels, rather than mass
media. Interpersonal channels are defined as the means that “involve a face-to-face exchange
between two or more individuals” (Rogers 1995). In fact, as we are examining the World Wide Web
as the social system in which individuals communicate via social networks, interpersonal channels
can be extended to people that we know in these networks. As for Twitter, celebrities and popular
figures are the interpersonal factors that have brought a widespread adoption for the service. Most
of potential users have their own favorite figures that they can relate to in terms of possessions,
personal backgrounds, shared ideas and values (‘Theory of identification’ 2010). Thus these
figures’ perception of the innovation, i.e. Twitter if they have used it, will be well-received within
the community. The fact that famous people like Ashton Kutcher, Oprah Winfrey, Lance Amstrong
or even President Barack Obama tweeting regularly on Twitter (Time 2010) has attracted a great
number of new register users for this service.
3. From 14 to 140 million users: The drastically-changing time
Time dimension in innovation diffusion theory, according to Rogers (1995), has three aspects those
are essential to be addressed.
The first one is its appearance in the innovation-decision process. Rogers (1995, cited in Hornor
1998, p. 5) plotted a five-stage process explaining how an individual adopt a new idea:
(1) from first knowledge of innovation,
(2) to forming an attitude toward the innovation,
(3) to a decision to adopt or reject,
(4) to implementation of the new idea,
(5) to confirmation of this decision.
Indeed, this is a process that any Twitter user has followed to choose using this service or not. Take
myself, a Twitterer, for example. I firstly got the knowledge of Twitter via some bloggers that I
followed (Knowledge), and then I looked for more information and had a good feeling about it
(Persuasion). So I decided to sign up, tried some functions (Decision) and finally ended up tweeting
with my friends on a daily basis (Implementation). So far, I’m really happy using this convenient
social network (Confirmation).
The second aspect is its involvement in the innovativeness of the adopters. Innovativeness describes
the ratio to which five adopter categories namely innovators, early adopters, early majority, late
majority and laggards are classified based on the relative time they adopt the innovation (See
Figure 1). The success of an innovation diffusion process mostly depends on the early adopters,
who are often opinion leaders those can influence other perceptions towards an idea (Parsons
n.d.).
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6. Figure 1. Adapted from: Maloney 2010.
In the case of Twitter, 2006 was the time period in which the innovators, i.e. its 14 creators and
first developers (Sagolla 2009) along with a few other people, started to use this social network.
The time during 2007-2008 was the period in which early adopters began learning and using
Twitter after the SXSW Awards and the Mumbai incident. 2009 has made a turning point when the
number of Twitter users increased dramatically; the new registered users during this period can be
considered the early majority. As 140 million registered users is not the final number of Twitter
adopters, we cannot identify the remaining adopter categories for this case.
The third involvement of time in diffusion of innovation theory is in rate of adoption, “the speed
with which an innovation is adopted” (Rogers 1995). This rate is usually measured by “the number
of members of the system that adopt the innovation in a given time period”. As indicated above,
Twitter has a high rate of adoption due to successfully obtaining the characteristics of a good
innovation.
4. World Wide Web: The interactive social system
“A set of interrelated units that are engaged in joint problem-solving to accomplish a common goal”
is called a social system (Rogers 1995). For Twitter, the World Wide Web is the social system and
its users are the units that have the needs to use the Internet. In terms of a social structure, the Web
offers an interactive communication structure in which 2-way conversations are conducted and the
“regularized patterns” of the system have changed over time. These patterns are known as social
norms, those have been followed by the members of the social system. Rogers (1995) also indicated
the role of opinion leaders in the society, who can influence others and help increase the rate of
adoption, and the role of change agents. Change agents, who are not in the social systems, can also
influence adopters’ innovation-decisions “in a desirable direction by a change agency” (Rogers
1995). For Twitter, change agents can be the professional critics that might not be a Twitter user
but still write reviews about the network.
III. Criticisms
The previous parts of the essay have shown a detailed look at how innovation diffusion theory has
been applied to help Twitter receive a great adoption as today. As the theory provides simple yet
specific descriptions on how an innovation and its diffusion can be improved to achieve greater
adoption, innovation diffusion theory has shown its parsimony & utility in different fields
concerning “promotion and understanding of human behavior change” (Haider & Kreps 2004).
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7. However, Rogers (1995, cited in Haider and Kreps 2004) also showed that this theory has to
overcome some limitations including:
(1) a pro-innovation bias
(2) the individual blame bias
(3) recall problem, and
(4) the issue of equality.
Let’s take the case of Twitter again to explain these shortcomings. The first one, pro-innovation
bias, is the idea that the innovation, i.e. Twitter, should be diffused and adopted by everyone in the
system (Rogers 1995, cited in Haider and Kreps 2004). The media coverage of Twitter sometimes
happened to make this mistake to “overlook” the innovation and urge people to have a Twitter
account although it is still behind former networks like Facebook or MySpace (Marketing Charts
2010). The second bias, the individual blame, is “the tendency to hold an individual responsible for
his or her own problems, rather than the system of which the individual is a part.” Sometimes
people are blamed for not being in the trend of using new technology like Twitter despite the fact
that the service might not serve any of their needs or they don’t have access to adopt the
innovation. The third criticism regards the recall problem when doing diffusion research. As time
dimension is one of the main elements of the theory, it is crucial to recall the respondents’ studies
in the past to “reconstruct his or her innovation experiences” (Rogers 1995, cited in Haider and
Kreps 2004). In fact, it is not easy for me to recall the old data for this Twitter example because the
access is sometimes limited or even unavailable. The accuracy of the data is also another problem
that researchers have to consider. The final criticism concerns the widening gap “between the
higher and lower status segments of a system” created by the innovation diffusion. This statement
might not apply to Twitter as it is a free international platform where everyone has the same
access.
IV. Conclusion
As innovations are non-stop ideas and objects that our society has been producing, in consequence,
the diffusion of innovation theory becomes one of the most adoptable community theories in
different areas. Analyzing this interesting theory with the widespread technology phenomenon
Twitter, I find it essential for innovators to consider the key characteristics to create a truly good
product. Choosing effective communication channels will also help boost the success of the
innovation. In addition, the innovation-diffusion process needs to be well-evaluated before
launching the product in order to get higher rate of adoption and avoid unnecessary biases.
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