Writing about the impending 'technological lock-in' of the social operating system space by Facebook, Reuters in a recent article compared the site to the QWERTY keyboard layout. (Via Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics.)
In the words of Reuters, technological lock-in is "the reason why the QWERTY keyboard layout, devised for typewriters in the 1870s, is still the standard despite the development of several more logical configurations. And Facebook, which has more than 100 million users in the United States and 350 million worldwide, appears to have nearly achieved technological lock-in, according to web marketing research company Comscore.com."
I find the comparison (to QWERTY specifically) rather ham-handed.
QWERTY is a standard. It's like driving on the right of the road or using a fahrenheit temperature scale. It's important people around you are doing the same - however, it doesn't preclude other societies/countries/cultures doing things in other ways.
There isn't any technological lock-in or any network effect with QWERTY as in with the Windows OS, DVDs or the internal combustion engine.
There's another reason why the QWERTY comparison is inaccurate. That's because the idea of QWERTY's inferiority seems to be a myth, albeit one that's almost universally believed to be true.
According to a Journal of Law and Economics paper forwarded to Straight Dope's Cecil Adams:
"(1) the research demonstrating the superiority of the Dvorak keyboard is sparse and methodologically suspect; (2) a sizable body of work suggests that in fact the Dvorak offers little practical advantage over the QWERTY; (3) at least one study indicates that placing commonly used keys far apart, as with the QWERTY, actually speeds typing, since you frequently alternate hands; and (4) the QWERTY keyboard did not become a standard overnight but beat out several competing keyboards over a period of years. Thus it may be fairly said to represent the considered choice of the marketplace."
Even the unflappable Cecil Adams - who on most occasions combines an almost omniscient brain with wit that's stinging with truth - had to concede this one.
QWERTY, it seems, is a victim of our tendency to wrongly favour simplified narratives that capture and perpetuate the seeming triumph of the mediocre over the deserving.
Either that, or at least in some cases, history is being written by sore losers. I don't think Mr.Zuckerberg would mind that too much.
[Original pic by fujur]
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