[jrochkind1]

It doens't neccesarily have to have predictive power to be useful....

But it seems pretty unclear if the theory of disruptive innovation has any predictive power at all.

You seem to be avoiding coming down on one side or the other. Do you think the theory has predictive power? If so, on what basis do you think that?

[jval]

I do think it has predictive power, in the narrow areas in which it can be applied. I think if you're a media executive and you've seen what's happened to the NYT, you know that newspapers aren't the only media vertical that is going to face the problem of disruption. Thinking behind it is probably what's driving deals like the purchase of Maker Studios by Disney[1] - if Disney just wanted to innovate they would have just invested in better digital content delivery. Buying Maker acknowledges that lots of lower quality content producers can acquire the same audiences as high quality large budget Disney productions like Hannah Montana.

You don't see disruption everywhere, for example Google and Facebook are hardly 'disruptive' as companies, but I think in the right cases the theory has predictive power and is a necessary tool in the belt of people who work in technology.

1. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/25/business/media/disney-buys...

[hyp0]

Reading his books, my overwhelming impression is that it's unclear if there's any predictive power. I'm unsure how you'd go about demonstrating it one way or the other - but that's Christensen's job. That he hasn't done it is telling. [ He does seem to be trying to push it as an all-encompassing theory, to be "people buy what they want" (and redefining "technology" more abstractly in subsequent editions, to include any way of doing any thing). And he's got that consultancy going... always good for "truth"... ]

However, I'm not sure how you see Google as not disruptive...? By revenue, it's an advertising company, and a different ballgame from print media etc. (advertisers get live feedback on performance - focus groups can't match that). The bidding idea is also brillant (from goto/overture) - google gets the highest possible price, but your competitor is the bad guy. Though I guess you might say it's the internet that's disruptive, and google's just along for the ride.