Early Adopter

Al Jolson in 1927 singing a song on camera. Zack Morris (ca. 1990) with his brick-like cell phone. Your great uncle with his PalmPilot. These are all early adopters.

The term refers to someone who jumps on an emerging technological trends before almost anyone else. They buy a product or get involved in a movement before it reaches mainstream consciousness (or before companies have worked out all the bugs).

AOL was "made" by its zealot passionate early adopters. So was GOOG with people who searched for stuff 8,000 times a day. So was Amazon with early adopters who bought 592 books the first week they could. Check out Amazon's Ring as well.

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