Crossing the Chasm

We were talking about new businesses and opportunities to move to the "cashflow quadrent" as described in the Rich Dad, Poor Dad series by Robert Kiyosaki. Several of the examples included consumer technology services such as internet phone services. That lead to a reference to the "crossing the chasm" phenomenon in technology product and service adoption.

from wikipedia

In Crossing the Chasm, Moore ... argues there is a chasm between the early adopters of the product (the technology enthusiasts and visionaries) and the early majority (the pragmatists). Moore believes visionaries and pragmatists have very different expectations, and he attempts to explore those differences and suggest techniques to successfully cross the "chasm," including choosing a target market, understanding the whole product concept, positioning the product, building a marketing strategy, choosing the most appropriate distribution channel and pricing.

Many excellent technology products and services never make the transition. This is helpful in understanding how some new products and services sound great to their creators, but take a very long time to find their way into general use. The technologies for internet phone services have been in common use in business for more than a decade. They are only now reaching consumers' notice as the next hot business opportunity.

Many of these "great" business opportunities are network marketing schemes. However, the really big money has already been made by the folks up stream in the business - investors in the original technologies that enable the consumer products and services. It is a matter of scale - millions from investment in the technology (cashflow quadrant) or thousands in part-time sales income (self employed).
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