2. Working in a team Completing a focus Accessing databases
of 6 plus a teaching group for the first such as Mintel in an
assistant equals time. effort to find
conflicting relevant
schedules. information.
3. SOLUTIONS
Meeting virtually to Coding a focus Sifting through all of
get the project group took time, the Mintel reports
done. Almost all but provided took a very long
meetings were insights that Mintel time, but paid in
conducted via could not provide. dividends when
Skype to use time generalizing.
efficiently.
4. PROOF
Data Analysis
“ After conducting some research, we concluded that college students feel the need to use Skype
because their friends and family use Skype. Our first index measures the norms people have relating
to the social pressures felt pushing them to use Skype. We obtained a reliability of .85 for this index,
which is very favorable. The means in this index range from 2.42 to 3.24 with three questions that
were all measured on a five-point Likert scale, so all the items are relatively similar to each other. The
question “It is expected of me that I use Skype to communicate with those close to me,” has a mean of
2.42, which is lower than the other questions in the index. However, this question substantiates our
hypothesis that as a college student perceives his or her distance from friends and family increasing,
the more he or she will be expected to use Skype. This question is problematic because the term
“close” could be confusing for participants. It is unclear whether the term means close in personal
relationship or in distance. If the participants took the word to mean distance, the data substantiates
our hypothesis. The means overall further substantiate our hypothesis because, as the questions ask
distance related questions--the first one is “close,” the second is “far,” and the third is “international”--
the mean becomes greater, 2.42, 2.94, and 3.42, respectively. Overall, this suggests that, as the
participants get farther from friends and family, the more apt they are to use Skype.
Recommendations
Our focus group clearly identified the issue Skype faces with the countless competitors on the market.
Skype’s team definitely needs to focus on continuing to upgrade their software with cutting-edge
features in order to distinguish itself from competitors. We found that iChat is one of the leading
competitors due to the fact that it comes preloaded on Mac computers. The participants that used
iChat as their main VoIP said “I have a Mac, so I use iChat.” This points to the suggestion that Skype
ought to take advantage of their new ownership and come preloaded on Microsoft systems in order to
maximize usage. The potential to include Skype in other Microsoft entities, such as Xbox Live and
Microsoft Outlook, would differentiate Skype from its competitors and add another avenue for
” consumers to use their product and services.
