

Perfect Time to Sell Skype: Today - tplDrew2
http://blog.tippingpointlabs.com/2009/05/perfect-time-to-sell-skype-in-the-gestation-phase/
Skype is almost certainly in the Gestation phase of it’s new media life cycle. The end of this phase is characterized by a ‘celebrity hit,’ meaning that someone figures out how to demonstrate the power of the new platform (in this case it happens to be Oprah) and just around the corner we’ll see massive media attention and a tremendous explosion in growth.
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swombat
Skype has been going for almost 10 years... seems a bit silly to suggest that
it's still at the height of its hype... in fact, I'd say it's been descending
down into the "trough of disillusionment" for some time. I don't know anyone
who thinks that Skype is super-cool at the moment.

If anything, I'd place it deep into the trough - assuming there is something
to bring it back up, which is far from guaranteed.

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briansmith
I think Skype is super-cool. I can call my friends on the other side of the
world for free. Or, I can make really cheap calls to their mobile phones, and
the sound quality of those calls is almost always really good. Discount
international calling cards usually have horrible (often unusable) quality
when you get down to the Skype-out price range. AT&T will give me great sound
quality too but they charge over $1.00 a minute for the places I call (the
last time I checked).

I'm not quite sure what value Skype has for people who aren't doing
international calling though.

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swombat
I didn't say it's not a killer product - but it's nowhere near being at the
height of its hype curve. That was probably around the time it got bought by
eBay.

Skype is also useful for video calls within a country, and for easy conference
calls. Free international calls to other skype users are, of course, the
killer app, though.

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jhancock
when ebay bought skype it was at the "height of its hype curve" with a niche
audience (geeks like us). My mother had still never heard of it. Now she has.

