I'm not sure what the business text books are saying, but my experience is this, and I suspect it to be typical of many users. I heard of Skype about 5 years ago. Didn't really get it. Thought that perhaps some people were joining a secret cult where you had to scratch your left ear to gain entry. You would see certain 'types' add it to the bottom of their email signature, or websites - Hmmm. Anyway, after an advertising campaign a couple of years ago, and after visiting some faraway relatives I revisited Skype. Set up a username and hey presto, I made 2 or 3 calls - maximum - grainy webcam, patchy sound quality etc. I then did nothing. Until this week.
My brother has recently moved to the US, so my sister was teaching my Mother to use Skype (again!). Now here is the first thing about Skype. People aren't always on. They couldn't get hold of him because he was showing as offline. I used my nifty, free, WhatsApp app to message him, and within a few seconds he was on. But here for me is the crux with Skype. The quality was so abysmal they had to abandon. I called them on my iphone's Skype app, but again the quality was awful. They could barely hear me at all - just the odd syllable.
If the stats are to be believed they reckon Skype is taking 13% of the international call share of minutes. Really??? Based on my experience I would rather use my landline, mobile or a prepaid phone card. Surely you need to be able to hear someone to have a conversation with them, rather than spend the entire duration saying "what was that?" Perhaps this is why the share of minutes is so high.
What I love about Skype is that it truly epitomises the Scandinavian sense of fairness and egality. Spotify and Ikea - same thing. But I think I'll wait another few years until the next marketing campaign announces that you can actually now hold a decent conversation.
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