Recognizing value creation potential: A bibliometric study of successful and unsuccessful technology

This paper revolves around the idea of whether successful and unsuccessful technologies can be differentiated from one another by observing the visibility of technologies in the business environment. We demonstrate that activity, represented by the visibility of the technology in media, could serve as an indicator of success. We carried out a bibliometric study in terms of technology life cycle indicators. Specifically, we studied the differences on the visibility of minidisc (unsuccessful technology) and digital cameras (successful) in the different phases of technology evolution. The bibliometrical study was done using the monthly number of articles discussing the mini-disc and digital cameras in both professional press and popular business press between 1994 and 2006. In general, our results show that the visibility of successful technology is higher than the visibility of unsuccessful technology in the professional press already in the development phase of technology evolution. A similar difference also exists in the popular press during the application phase of the technology evolution. Therefore, value creation potential can be acknowledged early on in the technology development, even before the actual commercialization of the technology.