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Innovation on the Web: the end of the S-curve?

Innovation on the Web: the end of the S-curve?
Innovation on the Web: the end of the S-curve?
Rigorous research into the historical past of Web technology driven innovation becomes timely as technological growth and forecasting are attracting popular interest. Drawing on economic and management literature relating to the typical trends of technological innovation, we examine the long-term development of Web technology in a theoretically informed and empirical manner.

An original longitudinal dataset of 20,493 Web-related US patents is used to trace the growth curve of Web technology between the years of 1990 through 2013. We find that the accumulation of corporate Web inventions followed an S-shaped curve which shifted to linear growth after year 2004. This transition is unusual in relation to the traditional S-curve model of technological development that typically approaches a limit. The point of inflection on the S-curve coincided reasonably closely with the timing of the dot-com crash in year 2000. Moreover, we find a complex bi-directional relationship between patenting rates in Web technology and movements in the NASDAQ composite stock index. The implications of these results are discussed in theoretical and practical terms for sustained technological growth. Specific recommendations for different stakeholders in commercial Web development are included.
Web technology, empirical measurement, innovation, patents, technological revolutions
390-412
Priestley, Maria
e1ee95f7-4430-4d06-8964-7afc6333d87f
Sluckin, T.J.
8dbb6b08-7034-4ae2-aa65-6b80072202f6
Tiropanis, Thanassis
d06654bd-5513-407b-9acd-6f9b9c5009d8
Priestley, Maria
e1ee95f7-4430-4d06-8964-7afc6333d87f
Sluckin, T.J.
8dbb6b08-7034-4ae2-aa65-6b80072202f6
Tiropanis, Thanassis
d06654bd-5513-407b-9acd-6f9b9c5009d8

Priestley, Maria, Sluckin, T.J. and Tiropanis, Thanassis (2020) Innovation on the Web: the end of the S-curve? Internet Histories, 4 (4), 390-412. (doi:10.1080/24701475.2020.1747261).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Rigorous research into the historical past of Web technology driven innovation becomes timely as technological growth and forecasting are attracting popular interest. Drawing on economic and management literature relating to the typical trends of technological innovation, we examine the long-term development of Web technology in a theoretically informed and empirical manner.

An original longitudinal dataset of 20,493 Web-related US patents is used to trace the growth curve of Web technology between the years of 1990 through 2013. We find that the accumulation of corporate Web inventions followed an S-shaped curve which shifted to linear growth after year 2004. This transition is unusual in relation to the traditional S-curve model of technological development that typically approaches a limit. The point of inflection on the S-curve coincided reasonably closely with the timing of the dot-com crash in year 2000. Moreover, we find a complex bi-directional relationship between patenting rates in Web technology and movements in the NASDAQ composite stock index. The implications of these results are discussed in theoretical and practical terms for sustained technological growth. Specific recommendations for different stakeholders in commercial Web development are included.

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Accepted/In Press date: 23 March 2020
e-pub ahead of print date: 11 April 2020
Published date: December 2020
Additional Information: Funding Information: This work was funded by the Digital Economy programme, led by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council on behalf of UK Research and Innovation. Grant number EP/L016117/1. We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful suggestions which improved the quality of this article. We are also grateful to Alex Mesoudi, Vadim Grinevich, Les Carr, Alexander Brem, Carsten Bergenholtz and Valentina Fani for their useful comments on earlier versions of this work. Other helpful feedback was received when our preliminary results were presented at the Breaking Silos Conference (Southampton, 2018) and the DRUID Academy Conference (Odense, 2018). Any errors or omissions are our own. Publisher Copyright: © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Keywords: Web technology, empirical measurement, innovation, patents, technological revolutions

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 439144
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/439144
PURE UUID: b40980d3-1fa7-4b34-b402-af25b3d3f662
ORCID for T.J. Sluckin: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-9163-0061
ORCID for Thanassis Tiropanis: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-6195-2852

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Date deposited: 06 Apr 2020 16:30
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 03:14

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Contributors

Author: Maria Priestley
Author: T.J. Sluckin ORCID iD
Author: Thanassis Tiropanis ORCID iD

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