Diffusion of Innovations

 The Diffusion theory that we briefly discussed in class is something that I find quite intriguing for a number of reasons. The first being because its application can be applied to any idea or invention that spans across history, and the other is due to the fact that it can explain and predict several events. Some of the examples that I came across in my research were typically technological based, such as an apple phone, radio, or television network. I'd like to personally continue this trend now that I have a decent understanding of it. This post will analyze the app Snapchat, specifically taking note of its evolution through society and how it's become such a popular development for young adults.

The first piece of the timeline for the Diffusion of Ideas theory are the pioneers, who in this case were college students. It was created by Stanford University students in fact, who created the application in September of 2011. It took inspiration from the theme of Instagram, but wanted to create something much more temporary and natural. One of the biggest reasons why it was adopted by so many adolescents was because they did not want their social media history coming back to haunt them. The perception that deleting something was quite negative in early days of social media, especially at a time where student were told to keep their profiles clean due to jobs being able to find them on a multitude of platforms.

The early majority of the users still remained with in the realm of young adults, but quickly became popular with middle schoolers as well. One of the biggest reasons for this was because it was something new that parents did not know much about and could not track, as opposed to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.  Its short video story feature was followed up by a chat feature, which could also be deleted at will after 24 hours. This helped them gain more acumen in the social media hierarchy, due to the fact that its users could also text alternatively in the app the same way they could normally over the phone. The difference this time however, was that their messages were not being recorded, meaning that even if the chats were discovered by an outside source, they would be taken down relatively soon.

The late majority of this app have evolved it many ways, and added their own innovations to it as well. They can mostly be classified as middle aged, with the intent of creating a space on the app that allows for things like movies and news.Publishers persuaded the app to create a "Dynamic stories" feature, which allows the stories they put online to appear in the form of short videos that play ads in between them. This was a way for them to reach more of a young audience and keep them updated on current events in their preferred short and concise format. 

The laggards are in a similar age bracket as the late adopters, and wanted to incorporate a unique version of the movie industry into the app. However, it was difficult to adapt it into the medium due to the nature of its history. Adapting to the snapchat has been not been very popular for young adults, and has mostly proved worthwhile for those approaching their thirties. TV programming has reached place like NBC and CNN, who have invested more than 500 million into the ambitious project.  NBC actually reported around 30 million viewers, but the number is hard to verify due to the lack of verification of what classifies as a "viewer." Although, their innovation has influenced apps like Facebook to try a similar type of model, which has reaped its own version of success in the social media industry in general in regards to film.

I would classify myself in the early majority category, as someone who has had the app since 2015. The research that I found actually applied to me, and the statistics that I read seemed very realistic. Looking at the app through the diffusion model helped me realize how far the app has come through its success and failures. Retaining its audience is become more difficult as generations pass it on, however there is still the lingering feeling that young adults and below will use it due to its ability to conveniently conceal information.