Wharton Chapter 3 - Speciation of Technology

I found this chapter very interesting, especially with the comparisons to biology and genetics which I was extremely interested in high school and early college. Certain technologies evolve very similarly to groups of species that are separated by some type of divider, allowing each group to evolve independantly.

I was also intrigued with their concept of marketing products. They suggested finding markets for existing products, rather than creating products for a specific market. The latter concept which is held by many marketing types, is the classic textbook method of product development. It starts with the marketing department recognizing a need for a specific product, who then goes to Engineering to create the product and then pushes the completed product through the pre-determined channels. Often times, horizontal markets are completely missed, and if discovered, often times only by mistake. For technology companies, if they don't think of horizontal markets for their products, someone else likely will.

I think blogs are a good example of what the authors are talking about. I doubt whoever came up with the idea for blogging ever thought it would be a method for students to submit assignments to professors.