If you pre-ordered an Echo Dot or Amazon Tap...

[jwlv]

If you pre-ordered an Echo Dot or Amazon Tap, congratulations! You are an "early adopter."

ear·ly a·dopt·er
noun: early adopter; plural noun: early adopters
    a person who starts using a product or technology as soon as it becomes available.

[George Jetson]

Yes I ordered the Dot!

[mike27oct]

Sometimes early adopters are unpaid beta testers of new products, so gotta pick the right times to be an early adopter.  Like for the first space ship flights to carry citizen passengers; that's when I will be a late adopter!  Believe me, this will be another product rushed to market before it is really ready for prime time.  Nevertheless, I've heard the first flight has been sold out for quite a while!
 

[Talisman]

I don't mind being an early adopter at all.. its nice to get a jump on some stuff. Other items just do not make sense to me as being practical in my environment and goals.

[mike27oct]

Anyone who bought the Echo during the initial special offer before it was released to public was an early adopter.
Marketing people know how to attract early adopters; they do it all the time.  That is why the Echo was on a special offer at first.  Same goes for the Dot with its price break for Prime members.

I was an early adopter of the original Roku. I had never heard of the company or the new product until I read about it and saw it was going to be released a week later.  I told my wife, we are ordering one of these today! We did, and we have enjoyed the various upgraded models over the past years.

[renegade600]

If you pre-ordered an Echo Dot or Amazon Tap, congratulations! You are an "early adopter."

I disagree unless you preorder every new gadget or device.  :-) 

[kilofox]

Not sure a Dot (basically an Echo without the Echo's speaker) qualifies as an "earlier adopter" device.

[mike27oct]

>>>  I disagree unless you preorder every new gadget or device.  :-) 

Nope.  Not anyone orders, preorders or buys EVERY new gadget; most can't afford to, for one thing.  If you want to check on the definition of "early adopter", I refer you to any basic marketing college textbook, or. . . . .

Here is a simple definition you can begin with from the Business Dictionary:

In the diffusion of innovation theory, the minority group (comprising about 14 percent) of population which, after innovators, is first to try new ideas, processes, goods and services. Early adopters generally rely on their on intuition and vision, choose carefully, and have above-average education level. For any new product to be successful, it must attract innovators and early adopters, so that its acceptance or 'diffusion' moves on to early majority, late majority, and then on to laggards.

Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/early-adopters.html#ixzz42Maxau47

Marketers know this from their study of the diffusion of innovation theory, (which influences their promotional tactics. and is explained here (just read the first section) 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations

In this section, you will read that:
"The categories of adopters are: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards."
So, now you see there is an adopter that comes before an Early Adopter called an Innovator! 

Let's use the example of the Echo to help our definition.  I would say the people who bought the very first Echos upon getting the early price-break promotional offer from Amazon to pre-order an Echo, were primarily Innovators and some early adopters.  The people who bought one shortly after seeing the Echo in action soon after it was in people's homes were mostly Early Adopters, and the folks who bought one soon after seeing the Super Bowl ads are mostly made up of Early Majority adopters. If the rest wait too long, they will be Laggards (and nobody wants to be a laggard!)

Sorry, renegade600, you are not correct in your comment, and you should have checked the exits before making it to be sure no marketing professionals were in the forum; turns out there are, ME.  over 30 years in Marketing, a BS degree in Marketing, and a 30 year career involved in marketing the leading college textbook called Basic Marketing.  I even spent some fun party times with the authors. 
Nevertheless, renegade600, I still love ya!

[mike27oct]

Not sure a Dot (basically an Echo without the Echo's speaker) qualifies as an "earlier adopter" device.

It does, especially if pre-ordered.  Read my reply below.

We have come full circle; see the very first post by jwlv.  Case closed.

[kilofox]

Not sure a Dot (basically an Echo without the Echo's speaker) qualifies as an "earlier adopter" device.

It does, especially if pre-ordered.  Read my reply below.

We have come full circle; see the very first post by jwlv.  Case closed.

What new technology innovation or idea is the Dot bringing that the Echo did not when it became widely available in June of 2015?

I suspect that the Dot shares the same components as the Echo sans the Echo's speaker. There is no paradigm shift or forward progress that I can see. So I pre-ordered..... that of it self makes one an early adopter? Not to me at least.

Its basically the same exact device.

The Tap.... I think you may have a point.

[mike27oct]

I pretty much said all I need to say, so you believe what you want to believe at this point.  Since you seem to be a marketing professional, too, I will not split hairs with you or anyone further on this topic.  It has gotten pretty boring for me to discuss by now.  Sorry.  I can't believe all the negative buzz the original post has created about it.

[renegade600]

>>>  I disagree unless you preorder every new gadget or device.  :-) 

Nope.  Not anyone orders, preorders or buys EVERY new gadget; most can't afford to, for one thing.  If you want to check on the definition of "early adopter", I refer you to any basic marketing college textbook, or. . . . .

Here is a simple definition you can begin with from the Business Dictionary:

In the diffusion of innovation theory, the minority group (comprising about 14 percent) of population which, after innovators, is first to try new ideas, processes, goods and services. Early adopters generally rely on their on intuition and vision, choose carefully, and have above-average education level. For any new product to be successful, it must attract innovators and early adopters, so that its acceptance or 'diffusion' moves on to early majority, late majority, and then on to laggards.

Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/early-adopters.html#ixzz42Maxau47

Marketers know this from their study of the diffusion of innovation theory, (which influences their promotional tactics. and is explained here (just read the first section) 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations

In this section, you will read that:
"The categories of adopters are: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards."
So, now you see there is an adopter that comes before an Early Adopter called an Innovator! 

Let's use the example of the Echo to help our definition.  I would say the people who bought the very first Echos upon getting the early price-break promotional offer from Amazon to pre-order an Echo, were primarily Innovators and some early adopters.  The people who bought one shortly after seeing the Echo in action soon after it was in people's homes were mostly Early Adopters, and the folks who bought one soon after seeing the Super Bowl ads are mostly made up of Early Majority adopters. If the rest wait too long, they will be Laggards (and nobody wants to be a laggard!)

Sorry, renegade600, you are not correct in your comment, and you should have checked the exits before making it to be sure no marketing professionals were in the forum; turns out there are, ME.  over 30 years in Marketing, a BS degree in Marketing, and a 30 year career involved in marketing the leading college textbook called Basic Marketing.  I even spent some fun party times with the authors. 
Nevertheless, renegade600, I still love ya!

I look at it this way, by saying someone is an early adopter just because they preorder one device is just like saying someone is an alcoholic when they only drank one beer in their life.   True, someone who preorder one device is more likely to do it again but not always.   As far as marketing textbooks, A lot of them are made up of assumptions that are not always true or are proven false at a later date.   That is why there are always newer versions.  Compare textbooks from the early 1900 with todays and see how ideas, opinions and assumptions have changed.  My point is, using a textbook as a source to an opinion may not hold water.   

Anyway, this is my last word on this...

[jwlv]

Any product where the general public does not yet know all of its features and functions and purchased by the select few can be categorized as early adopters. Sure, we know what the regular Amazon Echo can do. But there's a lot of things that we don't know yet about the Dot and the Tap. And those who pre-ordered one will be able to tell the rest of the population what's good, what's bad, and everything else about these new products.

[mike27oct]

@jwlv:
Thanks. 101% right on the money.  I was getting tired of repeating this fact to the disbelievers.

@renegade600
Speaking of holding water, you are all wet, acting like a troll, and digging your hole deeper here by expressing unfounded opinions and not facts.  I also don't need you telling me anything about marketing or the textbook business where I said I spent a 30 year career.  If you have a college degree, you used textbook published by my former employer; it is that big and important in the industry.  If you haven't been to college, you might consider doing so if you are still young enough.  It is a proven fact that college grads have higher incomes than those who aren't.

And, just to let you know I am a "good guy," I will let you in on a textbook industry "secret" and that is: textbook publishers release new updated editions (i.e. versions) and even new books, frequently for one MAIN reason: TO SELL MORE BOOKS!  Just like any company does (e.g. Amazon, and all the others) when they update their products and release new ones -- so they can sell more of them.  It's all about the money, Honey. Nothing wrong with that. 

I didn't even care if the students read and studied our books, as long as they bought them was good enough for me. If they didn't read them, they were only hurting themselves.  Not my personal problem.

[vilis2013]

I ordered Dot too!
I would have ordered Tap as well, if only it had an audio out port to play via car speakets.