Diffusion of web technologies and practices: A longitudinal study

Abstract

Our research objective was to undertake a longitudinally study of how technologies and practices used in web development diffuse over time and whether the diffusion patterns are affected by the regions or the industries in which they take place. The diffusion of web technologies is of interest as, they are highly visible and accessible across the globe and industries by their very nature, which makes it possible to potential adopters to trial them and experience first-hand their relative advantage, compatibility and complexity. Three different cases were chosen, in order to test our hypotheses based on the Diffusion of Innovations Theory. A system was built to collect data using the Wayback Machine. The data collected covered a period of 13 years. Our findings suggest that web innovations may diffuse differently when compared to each other, but also when regions and sectors are considered. Beyond testing the ecological validity of Diffusion of Innovations Theory in web-related technologies, our findings have practical implications which can inform the diffusion of technologies and standards.

The development of ancient Chinese agricultural and water technology from 8000 BC to 1911 AD

“…Technology development started to accelerate in the Qin Dynasty (255 BC) and lasted until the SY Period due to bureaucratic feudal structures that centralised resources for development. However, as confirmed by numerous scholars (Needham and Bray, 1984;Shen, 2010;Wang et al, 2017), the traditional agricultural technology system did not reach stabilisation as proposed by Rotmans (2005). It was unable to achieve a new dynamic equilibrium that featured contemporary scientific knowledge.…”

“…Zeng, 2015). In particular, the History of Science and Technology in China was re-adapted and improved from the renowned Science and Civilisation of China by Joseph Needham, covering all major agricultural technology disciplines (Dong and Fan, 2000;Needham and Bray, 1984). This edition is currently the most upto-date and comprehensive technological encyclopaedia in China.…”

“…1 Defined geographical regions. This figure illustrates the division of geographical regions that will be analysed in this study (Yan and Yin, 1993) Focused on technologies using socio-economic and political contexts, structured in historical periods Publisher: Tianjing Science and Technology Publishing, China (458 pages) The History of Chinese Agricultural Technologies (Liang, 1989) Focused on different categories of technologies, structured in historical periods Publisher: Agricultural Publishing, China (648 pages) The History of Science and Technology in China-The Agriculture Volume (Dong and Fan, 2000) Focused on the development of agriculture as a discipline, structured according to theories, artificial tools, and the philosophy of agricultural technology Publisher: Science Publishing, China 883 pagesThe Boltzmann's sigmoidal function was employed to model the temporal development trends of agricultural and water technologies in China, which have been widely applied to analyse and predict the development progress of various technologies (Chang and Baek, 2010;Papagiannidis et al, 2015;Stahl, 2015;Rogers, 2003):…”

To what extent can new web-based technology improve forecasts? Assessing the economic value of information derived from Virtual Globes and its rate of diffusion in a financial market

“…As Papagiannidis et al (2015) observe, isolating diffusion is non-trivial, since Web information diffuses at varying speeds depending on the region and industry. Equally, isolating the effects of one type of information, such as VG information, is difficult because the environment within which diffusion takes place is itself subject to significant change through time.…”

Lecturer Based Supportive Tool Development and Approaches for Learning Material Sharing under Bandwidth Limitation

“…However, developing web applications requires different approaches than desktop applications and involves the integration of numerous technologies [15], [16].…”