Skype dialtone reaches 20 million simultaneous online

Skype crossed a new high watermark today: 20 million people online at the same time. At moments, it passed 20.3 million. The last two million-person marks were 14 September and 5 October 2009. Skype added two million in the last 46 days.

Dialtone is a measure of a few things:

• The value of Skype's network effect. The more people you can reach within a network, the more valuable the network.
• The number of people actively using Skype. The number of people using Skype in a day or a week is much larger than the high tide mark. Millions sign in to Skype for just thirty minutes to an hour at cybercafés. Some have dedicated Skype devices or PCs that keep a Skype connection all the time. Many people disconnect after the work day and when they go to sleep at night. All told, I put active users about 120 million signing in a week.
• The health of Skype's user community. Growth is good. Exponential growth is better. Flattening is a warning. Falling needs a fix. Northern hemisphere summers show slow growth so don't worry too much about slowed growth from May through August.

Skype dialtone shows the upper limit, the capacity, of the Skype network. So far, so good.

Hat tip to Skype's Peter Parkes for the tweet. 

tags: stats, statistics, trends, skype, online, trend, charts, graphics

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