Yahoo's Approach To VoIP Marketing: Viral

We've been saying for quite some time that Skype is a very interesting company that pushes the envelope, but long term they will be far less significant than the Yahoos, Googs, AOLs and MSNs, which have much broader relationships with people, and established bases of customers. On that note, I just got my first inkling of Yahoo's integrated marketing of their VoIP Messenger With Voice. A friend sent me an email from his Yahoo! Mail account, and the tagline ad appended on the bottom said, "Blab-away for as little as 1¢/min. Make PC-to-Phone Calls using Yahoo! Messenger with Voice." That's powerful marketing, because while Skype has viral marketing by word of mouth (keen users recommending it to friends) big portals have not only that kind of viral spread, but also their email users are unwittingly marketing their VoIP to their contacts in thousands of messages. And email is a much more large and active user base. Because they can integrate PC-based VoIP and leverage it with existing services, the big portals are the ones to watch in VoIP.