I noticed over the weekend that Skype users never peaked 15,000 users, but this morning it is already up to over 16,000. The newest update on the logo shows “240,000 downloads and counting.”

Janus Friis, co-founder of Kazaa and now Skype, talks about the interest to get into the VoIP market in this article: Why VoIP is music to Kazaa’s ear: After Niklas Zennstrom and I did Kazaa, we looked at other areas where we could use our experience and where P2P technology could have a major disruptive impact. And, wow, that article is overflowing with possible “disruptive” uses for Skype, like when Mr. Friis says: we do think that many people are tired of bloated IM clients from large companies such as Microsoft and would be eager to replace it with something simple that just works. AOL and Microsoft should be thrilled.

Bloggers are already starting to speculate negatively about the Skype End User Licensing Agreement which says that things are going to go to a paid model. It would be nice to think of them offering at least basic pc-to-pc Skype service for free, but that would somewhat contradict what they put in their EULA (which basically says that those who aren’t paying won’t be able to call those who aren’t paying — no free-to-free pc calling).

Although, Skype has never claimed that the service was going to be free forever. My question is how affordable will it be? $5 a month? $30 per year ”affordable”? According to Mr. Friis: We hope people will start saying, “I’ll Skype you” instead of “I’ll call you,” which means “I’ll call you without paying any rip-off per-minute charges and with superior better-than-phone quality.” I have already written that I think Skype will be huge; let’s just all hope that they stay on the positive track and don’t go to an alpha rip-off subscription model and ultimately become a huge disappointment.

Related entries:
KaZaA maker beta tests new voice P2P system: Skype
Skype helpful sound tips
How to use callto tags with Skype

Did this post make you go hmm?

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