Skype growth and blow :-(

Last week October 25, finally, Skype passed another million « concurrent users online » milestone, and reached a peak above 24 million.

Hurrah? Not really! If we forget the first year (2003-2004) this is the second longest period between million milestones: 231 days to go from 23 to 24 million! The last time was in March, after only 49 days, and the previous one was January with only one week between a million.
It looks like competition of Google, Apple and cheaper prices of telephone companies is slowing down the growth of Skype.

Is this the reason that they “killed” two third party developers?
Read about this in Skype Journal: Skype Fring’d Nimbuzz: Another blow to Skype’s developer program.

In the past they killed video add-on developers (Spontania and vSkype), by launching their own video call feature. And they also stole the “birthday warning” idea from other add-on developers, among them the fantastic Pamela Skype toolbox. If I were a developer, I wouldn’t trust Skype anymore!

Where are you going, Skype?

Skype and impaired hearing

My father died 2 years ago. He was 80, and was the technology man at home, and e-mailed and googled for my mother.

My mother, 76 now, had to learn to do it! First e-mail and browsing. But she doesn’t hear very well …

My oldest son Stefan, and also her oldest grand-child, moved from Belgium to Brasil and is looking for a job there.

My mother therefore decided to learn how to use Skype, and she bought a webcam.

But, surprisingly, when she needs to call me, she also uses Skype instead of her cell phone or landline. No, not because it is free, but, because of the webcam and her impaired hearing.

Her explanation is: she understands better with Skype and webcam because she sees the movement of the lips of the person.

My explanation: the sound quality is often much better.

Probably both factors play a role in her perception of "better understanding".

Nice side effect of Skype!