I've spent a few years studying the behavioral pattern associated with ubiquity, and I'm surprised at what I've learned along the way. Here right now, I'm going to unload my findings, and it's up to you to keep an open mind about it all and take a deep breath about the subject.

Ubiquity is only important to you, the one in the "doing" seat (developing/designing).

This is now the part where you echo "Well Scott, I have x customer who asks me all the time which version Flash is at blah blah" and yes, you are 100% correct in saying that it becomes a selling point in your discussions with a customer that you create experiences for. It still doesn't dismiss my point, it's still a problem that you and your customer are only dwelling on and in a manner that's probably mostly both of you high-fiving one another over.

Don't believe me?

Let's look at Firefox. Started from zero, was up against Internet Explorer, one of the most widely installed browsers even today, and its job was simple - get users to switch their browsing habits. In a sense, ubiquity was important, as the success criteria for Firefox's success was how many consumers have it installed firstly and secondly are using it.

Well its 2009, Firefox isn't ubiquitous so I guess we should file it under the "Fail" category right? I mean it's not 70% or above therefore it has to be an utter failure?

What about Google Chrome, it's got even less market share than Firefox, so it has to be the worst failure of all time by now surely. What about Opera? that's got to be even worse - except in places like Russia etc where it's actually quite a common browser to be seen.

It's not a failure, as you need to look at this from a different angle, what is the market opportunity look like. If Internet Explorer has the majority market share, and I get 40% of them to switch away from IE for browsing, doesn't that mean I've succeeded, I've changed the way things work, I've had impact, I've reduced IE's market share? I've trained x number of customers that there is another option on the table so the next technology stands a greater chance to succeed?

Flash has 90+% according to Adobe, which makes it a compelling majority share, so in turn there's absolutely no friction required to target this platform as well, it's there, it just works.

If only that were true, each day millions upon millions of consumers install Flash, just like they do the above browsers and yes, Silverlight, QuickTime, iTunes, Google Gears, Java Runtime etc. Still skeptical, how about this, Flash has stopped shipping on Windows since XP, so it has to be installed from somewhere? where? YouTube? MySpace? FaceBook?

The reality is ubiquity isn't important, saturation levels are. The most important metric of all is "who's asking my customers to install x technology and why". As that's part of the success criteria, as you can't go without 1 hour or less online right now and not have a site prompt you to install Flash (doesn't matter what version either, you didn't meet the min version requirement so go get it).

End users assess the risk, sometimes in a matter of milliseconds and proceed to install the said technology, as today, the risk of installing a foreign technology from a house-hold brand, is well, low. As we've essentially gotten used to installing and uninstalling software, it's become a common tax to be paid.

Last official counts, 300million+ people installed Silverlight (Its much higher today, but i can’t say exacts given I’m under NDA). Last count 100million people installed Adobe AIR and every day according to Adobe  approx 18million people per day (average - July 2008) install Flash.

The word million gets lost in translation, as we often forget what the size of a million looks like. To put in perspective, last time I checked, 21million units of the iPhone were sold by Apple. Only 21million? I swore there was more than that. I see them everywhere around me, so that number must be higher? Well there are approx 304million people in the United States today, so in a sense factor in that population size against the total iPhone units sold to date and well, it can be easily spun as a small market opportunity compared to other technologies, like the desktop?

The Windows desktop has more people than the iPhone, so surely the ubiquity argument would hold here right?  This is the sweet spot, forget iPhone go for the desktop it's got people. You don't do that though, and you know why? The iPhone is used differently to a desktop, it's that device you use when in the toilet, on a bus, plane, waiting for a friend to arrive at the movies etc.

Ubiquity isn't important as much as the reasons why people will use a given technology in the first place. Ubiquity is simply a scorecard to track whether or not people are choosing NOT to install a plug-in. If you wanted to focus on an actual metric that determines success of failure, look at two and they are saturation of a technology and more importantly, abandonment rates.

You'll never get 100% or large majority in either of those boxes unless, the content or situation is compelling enough. As we live in a world where attention is a highly valued commodity and each day our consumers cognitive load is attacked from every angle. If you manage to crack the cognitive code and get a large user bases full attention, people will install anything you put in front of them if it means getting access to whatever it is you've managed to break into their interest levels on.

Just a thought, what's your take on the matter?

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