BigShinyThing

So here are the facts:

• Voice over internet protocol (VoIP) uses peer to peer networks to make free telephone calls between computers.
• Skype has 68 million users worldwide.
• It is currently adding 175,000 users a day.
• Skype doesn’t advertise — it uses its users to recruit their friends.

Last September, eBay bought the company for $2.6bn with the promise of a further $1.5bn subject to performance. The auction site is already using the service to provide phone calls for high value/stress transactions such as cars and property. It has also introduced ‘click to call’ advertising via Skype on the site — direct response advertising that doesn’t require a website.

Speaking in today’s Independent, Zennstrom sounds eerily like Google and Gates in their heyday,

Skype is bigger than a product. We are going to make it into the world’s largest communications company… Probably in 20 years’ time we won’t even be talking about VoIP. VoIP will be the way telephone networks are.

Want more proof that Skype are set for world domination? They’ve just signed a wi-fi deal with Google which they hope will become the biggest in the world by the end of the year.