I just came across a blog post of Stuart Henshall. Stuart Henshall is the guy who launched Skype Journal years ago!He posted a long comment just after the Skype Outage, and was as many others quite unhappy with the crisis communication of Skype. But his feelings are deeper, some extracts here.
"… their Brand has evolved from being community led around sharing to something corporate and out of tune with those that once loved Skype but now just use it.
The outage just confirms once again that "Skype's" crisis management and handling of communications is poor; as it has been since eBay took control. In the end Skype has damaged its reputation because they failed to act in a transparent manner and continue to act a wee bit too secretly. We will continue to use the service yes. Does it make me feel warmer about Skype no ...
…
I'm convinced (and needed no real convincing) that Skype's network works.
…
Skype has become a faceless corporation and we're just "users" where once we were advocates, storytellers, testers and happy Skypers. Today we are "Everyone" and Users. I'm sorry, I'm still a Skyper and I Skype."
That is almost exactly how i feel!
Read the whole story here: Outing Skype Communications
4 comments:
They have lost that infectious, disruptive, innovative spirit that you, I and so many others were drawn too. The frustrating part of all of this, is that disruptive spirit can still provide huge business returns, if managed correctly - the new era has lost that 'lets just do it and screw them all' attitude. If they aren't careful they will become victims of their own success.
Thanks for the comment.
I remember that the day Skype was sold to EBay i had a very bad feeling !
I don't think eBay cares so much about Skype anymore. Just have a look at the quarterly report: Skype is merely mentioned, and there are no estimates about the future. Probably eBay relized fairy quickly that Skype wasn't such a great investment. And no wonder, only "users" in Northern America are relived from the new connection charge, a charge that make Skype a no option to the competetive European fixed line market.
I think you are right: Skype is too small and hasn't grown as expected.
Ebay made a mistake: they only will admit this the day they sell it for much less to some other interested company ... or the day the let it die!
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