The long tail of technology

The editor of WIRED magazine talks about the long tail of technology. Briefly, his point is that every major technology goes through four stages in its life cycle:

• Price falls below a critical amount
• Adoption gets to critical mass
• Replacement of another (previous incumbent) technology
• Price approaches "free"

This talk is from 2004. Four years later, it is interesting to sit back and see how many of the trends he pointed out in this talk fulfilled their potential in the interim. Accuracy of prediction nothwithstanding, the "stages" he outlines in this talk is a useful takeaway.