Skype versus Vonage -- a Fight to the Death!!!

There are two matters at hand that I need to gripe/complain/explain and lots of other descriptive words about. I don't care if I should make it into two separate posts, because gosh darnit I will MAKE IT WORK!

First off, I just read chapter 3 .. or at least most of it in Naked Conversations by Shel Israel and Robert Scoble they were discussing ICQ and Firefox and how both took off like wildfire (no pun intended) they attributed ICQ's and Firefox's success to it's Word of Mouth advertising, whether it be through actual mouths or blogs.

But I have to question this.

Firefox and more so, ICQ were revolutionary, so does it or did it really matter how they were marketed or advertised? When there's a need for a *USEFUL* product that hasn't existed yet does it matter if it's advertised through blogs or through TV commercials? Will it have the same effect?

WITTY TRANSITION...

This brings me to Skype versus Vonage (in a fight to the death, on Pay Per View tomorrow!) As I understood it Israel and Scoble insinuated that because Vonage took traditional route in advertising and not word of mouth like Skype, that that's why Skype grew and possibly is growing faster than Vonage. But that doesn't quite make sense to me.

I understand that less marketing costs is better, but as far as I know, Skype and Vonage are two separate products based off of the same VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) technology. I've heard that Skype is expanding their product line (in order to charge their users $$) which would cause them to actually resemble Vonage a little more than before. But in the beginning isn't it true that Skype was a free, use it on your computer calling service? And isn't Vonage a you pay monthly, use your phone bought at Best Buy calling service?

If so, how can they be compared? Not to mention who didn't love Vonages' first commercials with people doing stupid things and the goofy music behind it??? You know you loved it!

If my understanding of each product is correct then it makes perfect sense why Skype grew faster than Vonage ... -People don't want to pay (for anything) especially per month, people are afraid to switch from traditional phone service to VOIP phone service (diff 911 system?!?!), and as mentioned in Naked Conversations, people do like the newest tech thing (downloading Skype)

So there, apples and oranges right?