Opportunities for Crossing the Chasm between Early Adopters and the Early Majority through New Uses of Innovative Products

Crossing the chasm between early adopters and an early majority is an important issue for innovation diffusion. This research addresses the uses of innovative products used by early adopters to solve the problem of crossing the chasm. First, a Human-Centered Computing System (HCCS) is used to extract the uses of innovative products by early adopters to create an advertising scenario, which in turn, is an opportunity for the early majority to cross the chasm. Secondly, our method is used to conduct a two-fold Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) test, i.e., before and after consumers read the advertising scenario. Lastly, clustering analysis is employed to classify the consumers and then to calculate the number of consumers in each cluster. The results of this experiment reveal that 22% of additional consumers agree with the use of innovative products by early adopters. The results also indicate that the uses of innovative products are likely to cross the chasm between early adopters and an early majority.