Diffusion of Innovaions: The Lightbulb

With how many people were involved in creating the lightbulb, each of them falls at different levels of the "diffusion of innovation" bell curve. 

Humphrey Davy

At the beginning of the lightbulb's emergence, British chemist, Humphrey Davy falls in the pioneer category. This is because he created the first lightbulb in 1809, however, this version of the lightbulb had imperfect beginnings, which led to Edison’s improvement on the lightbulb later on. At this point on the lightbulb timeline, Davy was among a small group of people who considered the lightbulb to be "experimental," as his version barely worked and it wasn't yet popularized.

Warren De La Rue, Henry Woodward, Matthew Evans, and Joseph Wilson Swan can be considered the early adopters of the lightbulb because, between the years of 1840 and 1879, these men started using and improving upon the version of the lightbulb created by Davy, however, they weren't able to come up with the commercial model of the lightbulb that our society uses today. De La Rue created a long-lasting lightbulb that was too expensive, Woodward and Evans patented the lightbulb but didn't move forward, and Swan created a glass lightbulb but it didn't last long enough. These men jumped on the uptake of the lightbulb as it started growing in popularity and more and more people attempted to perfect it. This leads us to the early majority.

Thomas Edison can be considered the main figure in the early majority of the lightbulb. in 1880, Thomas Edison bought Woodward and Evan’s patent, changed the lightbulb's filament, and created the first real commercial model. This makes him a part of the early majority because Edison's version of the lightbulb was the final step in its uptake before it reached its tipping point and started to decrease in popularity.

Thomas Edison

Following Edison's commercial version of the lightbulb, Irving Langmuir created neon lights in 1913. In terms of the bell curve, Langmuir and his first-time buyers fall within the "late adopters" category. At this point, everyone was using Edison's version of the lightbulb, and people who were just now jumping on the bandwagon when neon lights were created were slow to start using this invention. This simple fact makes them late adopters because they joined the fad later than the vast majority of people. In addition to this, at this time the commercial model of the lightbulb was being built upon and changed, causing a maturation to occur in the popularity of the lightbulb as other inventors attempted to faze out Edison's version and replace it with their own improved version. Langmuir is a prime example of this.

Then, closing the final few stages of the bell curve, Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano, and Shuji Nakamura created the first LED lamp in 1997. This makes them the laggard components of the "diffusion of innovation" bell curve. At this point, saturation is starting to occur and fewer people are using the improved versions of the lightbulb. Although, it's important to note that LED lights have grown in popularity slightly throughout the years, showing how the bell curve will never actually reach zero. The bell curve has a long tail, which in terms of the lightbulb, I see as being LEDs, as most people have already gotten the commercial model of the lightbulb.

As time goes on, the penetration of the lightbulb will never truly reach zero because there will always be people buying the newer versions of it despite how long it's been since the creation of the initial model.