I'd like to read about the early adopters of yesteryear...

February 17, 2009 7:00 PM

I want to read as many things as I can about early adaptors of technologies of yesteryear (like the first people who jumped on the radio, transistors, calculators etc.) Do you know of any articles/books/people studying this?

I'm looking for scholarly articles, I think. I guess what I'm looking for are journal articles or books, rather than magazine articles about newfangled technologies that are sweeping the nation.

Thank you in advance.

posted by melodykramer to technology (14 answers total)

On the Short Waves, 1923-1945: Broadcast Listening in the Pioneer Days of Radio
posted by mykescipark at 7:02 PM on February 17, 2009

Malcolm Gladwell discusses this in The Tipping Point, I think, with regard to farm technology.
posted by Miko at 7:05 PM on February 17, 2009

When Old Technologies Were New
posted by tjenks at 7:24 PM on February 17, 2009

These are all fantastic and exactly what I'm looking for -- I'm interested in how "early adaptors" react once the userbase of technologies has reached, for lack of a better term, a tipping point. This is a great starting point.
posted by melodykramer at 7:26 PM on February 17, 2009

userbase of a technology, I should say.
posted by melodykramer at 7:26 PM on February 17, 2009

The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-line Pioneers, by Tom Standage, is a decent book about...the story of the telegraph system. There's also a whole field of Science and technology studies.
posted by dreamyshade at 7:30 PM on February 17, 2009

Yup, I'm quite familiar with the field. :P

I want to look into early users of the telegraph and how their attitude changed after more people started using it.
posted by melodykramer at 7:34 PM on February 17, 2009

"America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone"
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:40 PM on February 17, 2009

I want to look into early users of the telegraph

Ooh, you might want to look into the history of journalism, then. Journalists and newspapers were among the earliest adopters of the telegraph and developed a lot of the standards and protocols of newsreporting around the technology. In fact it utterly changed newswriting style - the pyramid structure (most important facts first) was born because transmissions often got cut off before the end of the communique was reached. That way editors got the 'nugget' of story even if the finer details were dropped off, and they could cut paragraphs off the bottom of the story if they needed to recompose a page without losing essentials. Early adopters had the freshest news, obviously, and those who mastered the technique early filed the clearest stories. But in the late nineteenth century, 'wire services' like the Associated Press formed, and telegraphic reporting was available in equally good form to all print outlets. That helped give rise to birth of muckraking 'yellow journalism' as newspapers sought to distinguish themselves from the sameness caused by reliance on now-shared sources and stories. At this same time, photography, comics, and things like society columns also appeared in papers to lend distinction.
posted by Miko at 7:41 PM on February 17, 2009 [1 favorite]

19th century bicycle riders were looked on (by some) as the sort of dangerous anti-social high-tech consumerists that some 21st century bicyclists see SUV drivers as being. This Portland Bike History presentation gives some of the flavor. This book looks to cover it, but I haven't read it.
posted by Zed at 10:31 PM on February 17, 2009 [1 favorite]

There was a radio guy here in Chicago, Steve Dahl. He's off the air right now, a victim of the bad timing of Portable People Meters coinciding with a cutback in advertising spending.

Anyway, he has often said "the pioneers get the arrows, the settlers get the land". I'm sure that's someone else's quote, but it's an apt description in a lot of cases.

He has always been trying to find ways to innovate. Partially to make more money, partially to expand his listener base, and partially because he's an innovator by nature. He was, by many accounts, the first modern day shock-jock. Disco Demolition and all. Saying stuff on the air that was shocking, sometimes mean, but usually things that the listeners were thinking. (He claims to have invented the term "pope-mobile" back in the 80s when John Paul II visited Chicago. Possibly apocryphal.) Back in the early 80s, he and his partner at the time Garry Meier were experimenting with syndication. (A rarity, or even first, in the long form, live talk-radio field.) They were on here in Chicago, and in Detroit. (Where a young Howard Stern was either in college, or working one of his first jobs). They had a deal all set up to syndicate to a few other cities like LA, Milwaukee and St Louis. Right before it went down, the local station got squirrelly and fired them. A few years later, surely having learned lessons from their failure, Stern and Limbaugh "settled the land" and obviously became quite successful.

Later, they did things like make a 1-900 line so fans could get updates all day, or when they were taken off the air for some reason or another. The first Twittering, I'd bet. Then in the mid 90s he built a website for similar purposes, and probably to make some money as well. Never really made any money at it, which surely fried him as the 90s rolled on and anyone with a website made millions. One of the first to use computers on the air- in the 90s, he would go onto AOL and read funny personal ads. When the iPod came out, he used iTunes to play music on the air. He started podcasting the radio show and live streaming, until CBS found out and pulled the plug, only to do the same thing shortly later with a ridiculous interface that never worked right.

All of these things were firsts, or at least on the bleeding edge of their popularity, and he never really got much benefit from them, beyond being something to talk about on the show. And many of these things went on to be used much more successfully by others.
posted by gjc at 5:45 AM on February 18, 2009 [1 favorite]

Probably not what you're looking for, but nevertheless... It's a thesis called "The Electrical House" written by Timo de Rijk, and it's about the the acceptance of domestic appliances. So far, this seems what you've been looking for. But it only covers the situation in The Netherlands. Also it's written in Dutch. There's an English summary that might be useful to you. I must have that book somewhere at my studio [famous last words...] If this is what you're looking for, I could scan that summary and email it to you if you like.
posted by ouke at 6:12 AM on February 18, 2009

Thanks all. This stuff is great and will provide many enjoyable hours of entertainment. :P
posted by melodykramer at 9:01 AM on February 18, 2009

NPR: The Trials and Triumphs of National Public Radio contains a fair bit of information about how the first public radio networks started, and then how they evolved over time (especially given the rise of commercial radio). I found it fascinating. It explores the personalities involved, which is great for any NPRnerd.
posted by greekphilosophy at 9:49 AM on February 18, 2009