In Eric Floresca’s blog for ITBusiness.ca, he discusses a disruptive innovation that has disrupted innovation itself: the smartphone. He discusses the way smartphones have disrupted not just the phone industry, but several others as well. Two model industries for this phenomenon are those of mp3 players and point and shoot cameras; both are now incorporated into the technology behind the smartphone. The industries had to adapt to such changes, forcing them to innovate.

With so many people with such ease of access to smartphones, innovation has rapidly increased. Innovation, due to multi-use products like smartphones, has turned away from material innovation, and shifted towards software innovation and intangible commodities. I believe that ideas themselves have more potential to become a reality than ever before. Entire industries are becoming intangible, changing market behaviour and creating an interesting phenomenon from a value perspective. How is it that a company without revenue, and without any tangible product, can be valued at $3 billion? Let’s ask Snapchat. A revenue free, tech company who was offered $3 billion for their company by Facebook in the fall of 2013. This phenomenon is unlike any usual market behaviour and falls back on the idea of innovation itself changing. Value is changing, products are changing, markets are changing, and undoubtedly we are entering an era of mass technological innovation and ease of access.

Other sources:

http://www.justellus.com/assets/iphone-5-feature.png

http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/disruptive_innovation.html