In essence the Skype product feature set has never differed much from instant messaging and open source competitors. At least when viewed as a simple feature 'tick list'. What Skype has done uniquely well, though, is to tailor every part of the product experience for ease of adoption: from investigation to use to recommendation onwards.

This could glibly be dismissed as 'viral marketing', but that doesn't do justice to the depth of their achievement. For the term 'viral marketing' doesn't explain how everything in the web site and product is oriented towards getting people on board with the minimum of obstruction. The term 'viral marketing' merely focuses on the moment of contagation.

To find out how well Skype's doing, you just need to take a look at some of the competition. Let's examine the download experience of AOL Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger, and contrast them to that of Skype.

(Apologies in advance for the layout mess of this article; I just don't have the energy to do some fancy CSS to put borders around the images and scale them better.)

AOL Instant Messenger (AIM)

First up to the plate is AOL. "Mum, just go to the AOL home page and grab their messenger client, then we can chat for free." Oh, yeah.

AOL, MSN and Yahoo all have a problem from the word 'go'. An a non-US resident, which web site do I go to? The ".com" or the ".co.uk" one? (Skype is notoriously global in outlook.) Let's assume we go the .com route every time. After all, my IP address is trackable to be in the UK, my browser is telling them my preferred language is "en-GB". They've got enough clues.

So let's hunt for the entrance to the rabbit hole:

OK, it's there. It has a nice biggish icon. It just requires you to be telepathic and know that "AIM" is their codeword for their instant messenger. And that "Join AOL" isn't the same thing as, um, joining AOL's IM network. Let's click forth…

Good - a call to action, bang in the middle. But there are some niggling 'buts'. What if I get distracted by their kind offer of a trial of their new client? I'm outside the US (see bottom of screenshot) — do I need to download something different? I don't have a screen name — am I supposed to get one before I download?

So AOL have given you plenty of excuses to abandon you shopping cart.

Next!

Mon dieu! You mean it didn't just start the download? Am I an upgrade or a new user? OK, let's go to 'new user'.

Note the sidebar — AOL are positively inviting you to abandon the download and go sniff around some of their other stuff.

Phew! They want my mother's dog's date of birth before I can download it and try it? Luckily I'm a 102 year-old Swiss woman today.

Um, except Switzerland apparently comes between "Congo" and "Cote D'Ivorie". I guess AOL forgot to pay the license fee for the advanced sort option when they bought in SQL Server. Naturally, "Germany" comes right before "Djibouti", too. I'll bear that in mind. (I couldn't find the UK, anyway.)

Nooooh! It can't be true! But I love you — I want to give you my life story, hold and caress your IM product in my hand! Don't leave me now…

MSN Messenger

So, AOL was an embarassing user experience catastrophe. Can MSN do better? At least the rabbit hole has a sign, even if painted somewhat obscurely:

Click on…

OK, so what do I do now? The top of the screen is animated, and marquees through their key products (Hotmail, Messenger, Spaces) each with their own "learn more" button. So one usability problem is that if it switches just before you click, you get the wrong product.

Anyhow, we wait for "Messenger" to be shown, and click…

Oops! Just takes me right back to the same page, minus the fancy graphics. Maybe they never tested their web site with Firefox?

Let's go back and click on that "MSN Messenger" text link…

Err, where do I go now? What am I supposed to download? Abandon ship, I think.

Yahoo! Messenger

I think our friends from Sunnyvale can do better, don't you?

The good news: a prominent icon, clearly labelled. And you can even tell that it lets you talk!

OK, since the icon didn't set up the expectation of a download starting, they've got to stick an intermediate screen in. Note the lack of clutter and diversions. Download, learn more, nothing else.

Uh oh! Which one should I choose? Is there anything good — or missing — in the UK version? I think I'd get a call from my mum at this point. Remember, a lot of newbies are really afraid of making mistakes.

Cool. Simple download instructions. Although I'm not sure that the idea of saving to your desktop is going to be universally understood.

All in all, high marks to Yahoo!. A force to be reckoned with?

Skype

So, on to the masters of the slick download.

Subtle? No way! But effective, absolutely.

It's good. It tells you what to do without any jargon. I think they can do better, though. I should get instructions perfectly tailored to my browser, not just generic Internet Explorer instructions.

Scores on the doors

You would have thought that by now the traditional IM networks would have got this process down to a fine art. But clearly not. Marketing clutter, technical faults, invitations to abandon ship. These are cumulative. Someone isn't doing their job. (That said, it could be worse. Ask your mother to provision herself with an open SIP softphone and establish a public identity. Ouch!)

There are lots more bits to the Skype adoption puzzle that make it sweetly special. The greater degree of internationalisation. The lack of use of the registry, so it'll install on locked-down corporate laptops. The fact that incoming calls ring, triggering a Pavlovian "answer the call", rather than popping up an obscure dialogue box. And so on.

The only mystery is why Yahoo! is the only one rising to the challenge of out-distributing Skype. AOL were once the kings of distribution, via CD carpet-bomb. Microsoft outran them by bundling with Windows, a superior distribution strategy. Yet neither can get the basics right of a simple download of their most personal, sticky and vital communications tool.

Until the competition starts putting the user front and centre in the experience, and not bizdev marketing deals or internal product marketing struggles, Skype will continue to sweep up new users faster than the opposition.

via Telepocalypse