APR Flash Card: 5 Stages of Adoption

The second of three flash cards on Adoption Theory.

Category: Theory
Front: 5 Stages of Adoption

Back:

1. Awareness-general knowledge exists, but lacks details.
   (You've heard of the hoozeewhatsit, but you don't really know how it works or how it might fit into your life. )
   
2. Interest-information gathering.
   (You start seeing ads for the hoozeewhatsit, and some friends are talking about it. You get a better sense of its value.)
   
3. Evaluation-mental trial.
   (You begin thinking about how you might use it, what it might replace, how it could make things easier.)
   
4. Trial-experimental use.
   (You take a hoozeewhatsit for a test drive, maybe borrow one from a friend. You may even go ahead and get one of your own if it's free or not cost-prohibitive. But you're not completely sold just yet.)
   
5. Adoption-continued use.
   (The hoozeewhatsit has stood the test of time. You are fully on board and loving your newest innovation adoption.)

Try thinking back to when you first used Twitter. You had heard people talking about it. Maybe you were annoyed by all the buzz, or maybe you were intrigued. Either way you were in stage one awareness.

Stage 2, your friends on Twitter start to tell you more. They berate you over coffee, preaching the wonders of Twitter. You see Twitter feeds on a few sites, maybe on the news.

Your mental trial begins when you find yourself wondering what you might tweet about, or if the twitterverse could help with this question from work or maybe a dinner recommendation.

So you pull up the site and create an account. Why not, its free. You follow a few news outlets and the handful of friends you can find in the search. You're in the trial stage.

After a few weeks, you get over the initial fear of what to say, you have a small network in place and you can finally see the value. How did live without this? You've hit the adoption stage.

If you're not a Twitter user which stage did you reach before you decided it wasn't for you?