Path Dependence and Social Media
Ah yes, path dependence. The idea that, well, history matters. It’s the notion that accidents, decisions, and the unlikely are equally valid in explaining the success and failure of a product as quality.
My Keys Keep Jamming
The classic example of path dependence is the QWERTY keyboard. Though not an idea based in reality, the example goes a little something like this. In 1867, Christopher Latham Sholes was given a patent for the typewriter. In developing his typewriter, there was one nagging problem: the hammers kept jamming. If a typist hit the keys too quickly, the individual hammers would jam together. Rather than solving the problem mechanically, he changed the layout of the keyboard to slow down the typist, thereby reducing the frequency of jamming.
Fast forward to today, and have a look at your keyboard. Though there are no mechanical hammers, we’re still using the QWERTY system. Rather than adapting to a new system that would increase our typing speed, we’re stuck with a system that solves a problem that no longer exists. Why? Because that’s what we’re used to.
The story goes on to show that we already have a better typing method: the DVORAK. It’s easy to learn, allows for faster typing, produces fewer errors, and increases a typists IQ by 20 points (just making sure you’re still paying attention). It’s a better product. So why don’t we use it?
Path dependence.
Because QWERTY came first, it became a kind of de facto standard. We’re locked in because everyone was using it. No one learns the DVORAK method because there are so few DVORAK keyboards. There are so few DVORAK keyboards because no one uses the DVORAK method.
Inconveniently, the whole DVORAK vs. QWERTY story is a fabrication (the DVORAK method, it turns out, is not a better method of typing). But the example is still the best I’ve seen of trying to understand path dependence.
Path Dependence and Social Media
One of the central ideas of path dependence is the notion that the first company to come to market has a tremendous advantage over fast following competitors even when those competitors have a superior offering. Once the market has adopted a technology widely, it is much easier to stay with the original choice than to move to an alternative, even when that alternative is better.
Sometimes path dependence can be seen in social media tools. How about twitter? Twitter was the first of its kind in microblogging. Sure, there was IM before it, but twitter was definitely unique in many ways. The service has been widely adopted within a relatively small but vocal community.
Since the launch of twitter, there have been several twitter competitors, many with a more advanced feature set than twitter. Pownce, for instance, is like twitter, but adds the ability to send files and events. It could be argued that pownce is a superior product to twitter, but good luck convincing twitter advocates…..even when twitter goes down without explanation, users are not willing to look at other competitors. As Michael Arrington stated "I now need Twitter more than Twitter needs me."
But if you look at social networks, you’ll see a strong argument against path dependence. Friendster was the first social networking site, but it was buried by MySpace. MySpace became the be-all end-all of social networking until facebook took over. Facebook was supposed to be a competitor to google, but now facebook’s public image is cooling off.
Each of these networks requires members to invest a significant amount of time and effort in developing their social connections (like twitter), however, loyalty to a social network seems much more fragile than to twitter.
Something Different Entirely?
When it comes to social media, is path dependence just a convenient way to describe why we’ll stay loyal to once service despite outages and new competitors? Or do we actually look for the best product and disregard the "first" for the "best"?
Or maybe social media is something different all together. Maybe product superiority means nothing when we’re really just trying to find the best ways to communicate with others. If all my friends are at one party at a dive bar and I receive an invitation to a black tie event with free flatscreen TVs hosted by Catherine Zeta Jones, I don’t know if I could call the latter a better party.
Okay, maybe I could.
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