[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.